Darth Vader Is Cleaning Up Va. Roadsides

A Virginia man troubled by litter along the highway has decided it's time for the empire to strike back, reports the AP. Henry Wakley of Blacksburg on Thursday dressed as the Star Wars character Darth Vader while cleaning a stretch of highway that he "adopted" through the Adopt-a-Highway program. “I like to get out here and dress up because it makes people smile driving by,” Wakey tells WSLS-TV. ”The lack of cleanliness disrupts me.”

As he picked up garbage along a 1.5 mile stretch, many drivers honked, waved or even stopped by to take a picture. Wakley says it's a fun way to bring awareness to the environment, though his stunt did not pass without incident: Someone called police on Wakley, and told them that Batman was walking along the road. Batman. But enough about pop-culture ignorance and back to littering: “We need to end this destructive behavior to restore the galaxy,” Wakley concludes. (More littering stories.)