Hudson Burk has some pretty big plans for a kid who isn’t even in elementary school yet.

With help from his grandmother, Barbara Burk, the 4-year-old Richmond Hill Primary School student recently launched Hudson’s Litter Gitters, a Facebook group that encourages others to do like Hudson and pick up trash, then post photos of their work.

The page is getting traction from like-minded kids and adults from Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado – even Mexico, and it looks like Germany and England might be next, the Burks said.

The effort to clean up the environment was an idea that sprouted from Hudson’s trip to the Jekyll Island Sea Turtle Center, Barbara Burk said.

There, he saw trash, learned about the “plastic pond” and got a look at turtles healing from their encounters with plastic and other garbage.

About two weeks later, Hudson was spending the night at his grandmother’s when he read the children’s book Saving Tally: An Adventure into the Great Pacific Plastic Patch, and that story added to his determination to make a difference, which led to his getting a “grabber” and setting forth to pick up trash – with the occasional help of his baby sister, Brenna.

“Hudson was so concerned about cleaning the plastic out of the trash he kept asking to go pick up trash when we woke up, which we did,” Barbara Burk said. “Now, every time he gets out of the car he wants to pick up trash. It’s wonderful.”

So far Hudson has cleaned up about 10 bags of trash, he said to a reporter, albeit with some prompting from his grandmother and his parents, John and Amber Burk.

“When we were on our way to your soccer game on a Saturday in the car and I had to stop the car and turn around when you saw some trash, you told me we had to pick up that trash and I said why, do you remember what you said,” John asked.

“Because the turtles might get it,” Hudson said, then expounded on his idea. “It’s to help the turtles, and help the alligators, and the sharks. It’s to save the world.”

That’s a tall order for a 4-year-old, which is why they put together the Facebook page, Barbara Burk said.

“He said ‘I need some help,’ so now we’re trying to keep get as many people as we can to pick up trash with us,” she said.

Find out more at Hudson’s Litter Gitters on Facebook.