LINESVILLE — Decrepit office furniture, heaps of cigarette butts and old, worn-out tires — lots of tires — were just some of the trashy things taken off the shoreline of Pymatuning Reservoir on Thursday.

Armed with garbage bags and gloves, more than 100 Linesville High School students braved the day’s cold, wet weather to participate in the Crawford County Conservation District’s annual litter sweep at Pymatuning.

Beyond the immediate, tangible accomplishment of removing litter from one of the region’s top tourist spots, the effort also gets its participants thinking both practically and philosophically about what responsible stewardship of the environment means, according to organizers.

In short, by seeing it, touching it and working to remove it, the students “get a good idea of what happens when you leave litter out there,” said project leader Brian Pilarcik, CCCD’s watershed specialist.

“It kind of makes you upset about how people are treating the environment, and

themselves,” said Linesville 11th-grader Aerial Albaugh as she and a friend, 12th-grader Ashley Durovey, walked along a roadside picking up cigarette butts, wrappers, fast-food cups and various other pieces of tossed-away trash.

Pymatuning State Park draws some 3.3 million visitors a year with between 300,000 and 500,000 visiting its spillway, according to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Statewide, Pymatuning ranks second only to Erie County’s Presque Isle State Park in visitation.

“The park’s really making strides in litter prevention” by taking approaches such as installing lid-sealed trash cans that reduce fly-away trash, Pilarcik said, but any plan requires the cooperation of the park’s visitors to be successful.

Thursday’s litter sweep was the third annual late-autumn effort hosted by CCCD. Pilarcik said the number of student participants has grown from 50 the first year to 70 the second up to 110 this year. The scope of the project has also grown, he said, and this year included clean-up efforts across most of Pymatuning’s Pennsylvania shoreline.

Along with CCCD, Pymatuning State Park and Linesville High School, partners in the project included the state Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Environmental Protection, Allegheny College’s Creek Connections and the Crawford County Senior Environmental Corps.

Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com.