'Love Echo Park Lake' Banners Return

Look around Echo Park over the next few days, and you'll see something a little bit familiar.

64 anti-litter banners--in Spanish and English--that say "Love Echo Park Lake, Don't Litter."

They are being posted through a grant to Echo Park's Trash Abatement Project (TAP) from the Council District 13 office.

They will look the same as the banners installed around Echo Park by the Stormwater Project in 2009.

"Keeping trash and pollution out of area storm drains is the goal," said TAP's Ida Talalla in an email.

"Storm drains empty into Echo Park Lake and the Los Angeles River, and convey discharge into the ocean," she added.

Residents liked "tying a message about the Lotus flowers and the lake into our pollution prevention message," said Joyce Amaro of the Stormwater Project.

"It's a local connection for the residents of Echo Park."

TAP was also leading the charge on Saturday, when volunteers collected 63 bags of trash near Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard with the help of the L.A. Conservation Corp's Clean and Green kids.

The clean-up, prescheduled as part of TAP's ongoing beautification efforts, was fortuitously timed.

According to a posting on a local listserv, 45 bags of organic materials were collected just between McDuff and Logan streets.

There will be another clean up on Jan. 7 from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Volunteers will meet in the Walgreen's parking lot.