Every plastic bag that blows off a curb in McKeesport has a short trip ahead of it: down the storm drain, into a creek, and on to the Youghiogheny or the Mon. Eco Scouts, the Thursday night workshop series from the Pennsylvania Resources Council and Allegheny CleanWays, has three sessions left this fall, and the October 29 session is built around exactly that trip.
Eco Scouts wraps up its fall series with three weekly workshops at Mission: Agape on Prescott Street in McKeesport, each Thursday from 6:00 to 7:30 PM: Food Wise on October 22, Waste and Watersheds on October 29, and Repair and Reuse on November 5. The series is open to adults and teenagers, you can register for all three or just the ones that fit, and registration runs through Allegheny CleanWays.
Three Thursdays left
We first flagged Eco Scouts in September, when the six-week series opened at Mission: Agape. The first half covered an orientation and a night on how recycling actually works, and it wraps up tonight, October 15, with a session on organizing community cleanups. The second half is the more hands-on stretch, and it is a good place for newcomers to jump in, because each workshop stands on its own.
The program’s premise is simple and a little unusual. Instead of starting with rivers, it starts with “stuff”: why households end up with so much of it, how it gets made, and how it gets remade. PRC’s Environmental Education Coordinator Laura Blood and the Allegheny CleanWays team pitch it to adults and teens who are curious, want to meet neighbors, and want skills they can carry back to their own families, churches, block clubs, and workplaces.
October 29: Waste and Watersheds
This is the session that lands squarely in our lane. Waste and Watersheds looks at how everyday trash and household habits reach local rivers, streams, and drinking water, and it brings in community experts and organizations working on the problem. The goal is practical: leave knowing which of your own choices make a difference for the water downhill.
McKeesport is a fitting place for that conversation. The city sits where the Youghiogheny meets the Monongahela, and the Mon is a drinking water source for communities downstream. Allegheny CleanWays has spent years pulling tires, appliances, and bags of litter out of the region’s riverbanks and hillside dumps, so the people leading this night have seen firsthand where the trash ends up. For watershed groups trying to explain why litter on a street is a water problem, this is a ready-made classroom with someone else doing the teaching.
Food Wise and Repair and Reuse
The sessions on either side are worth the trip too. Food Wise, on October 22, covers finding affordable food, storing ingredients so they last, and cooking low-waste meals, with a hands-on taste test of zero-waste recipes. Food waste is a household budget problem first, and it is also a landfill problem and, eventually, a runoff problem.
Repair and Reuse closes the series on November 5. Participants connect with local repair experts and pick up practical fixing skills, with the aim of cutting household expenses and keeping usable items out of landfills. It is the most immediately useful night of the bunch for anyone tired of replacing things that only needed a screw or a stitch.
Why it matters for the rest of us
Most of what fouls a stream in the Upper Ohio basin does not come from a pipe. It comes from thousands of small decisions made on curbs, in kitchens, and at the end of driveways, which is why programs that change habits do quiet, lasting work for clean water. If you have members, volunteers, or neighbors in the Mon Valley who keep asking what they can actually do, send them to McKeesport on a Thursday night. Worst case, they come home with a working toaster.
Based on the Pennsylvania Resources Council’s Eco Scouts announcement of October 14, 2026, presented with Allegheny CleanWays, and H2O Water Network’s earlier coverage of the series. Registration is handled through Allegheny CleanWays. Current as of October 15, 2026.
