UNDATED (WJON News) -- This Earth Day, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is encouraging residents to get their hands dirty to help keep the environment clean.

MnDOT is looking for individuals and groups to sign up for the Adopt a Highway program. Currently, there are over 900 sections of highway available to anyone looking to participate.

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Each stretch is about two miles, and volunteers are asked to make a minimum two-year commitment to clean up litter on both sides of their designated section at least twice per year. MnDOT provides all participants with garbage bags and safety vests, and collects the bags of trash from each cleanup site.

In 2022, more than 1,860 volunteer groups spent over 88,000 hours cleaning up 38,500 bags of trash from highway ditches around the state.

Minnesota’s Adopt a Highway program began back in 1990.

LOOK: Stunning vintage photos capture the beauty of America's national parks

Today these parks are located throughout the country in 25 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The land encompassing them was either purchased or donated, though much of it had been inhabited by native people for thousands of years before the founding of the United States. These areas are protected and revered as educational resources about the natural world, and as spaces for exploration.

Keep scrolling for 50 vintage photos that show the beauty of America's national parks.

RANKED: Here are the most popular national parks

To determine the most popular national parks in the United States, Stacker compiled data from the National Park Service on the number of recreational visits each site had in 2020. Keep reading to discover the 50 most popular national parks in the United States, in reverse order from #50 to #1. And be sure to check with individuals parks before you visit to find out about ongoing, pandemic-related safety precautions at www.nps.gov/coronavirus.

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