(Washington, DC) Weekly residential street cleaning operations resume Monday, March 21, 2005. Alternate-side parking restrictions during street sweeping hours will go into effect once again. Parking citations ($30 fine) will be issued to vehicles parked during street sweeping hours in areas posted with "No Parking/Street Cleaning" signs. Additionally, parked cars may be towed.

The sweepers' return kicks off the District's spring-cleaning season, when activities largely suspended during the winter-such as sweeping, nuisance property abatement, graffiti cleaning and poster removal-are reactivated.

Street sweeping reduces debris that would otherwise be carried by rain and runoff into the city's storm drains, polluting the District's rivers. The sweepers remove trash and small debris from the street by sweeping it onto a conveyor system, which transports the material into a debris hopper. Each sweeper has a hopper capacity of approximately one ton of dust, dirt and trash.