So for my second time helping mother earth, I decided to stay local and help in a neighborhood trash pick up on the main road. This was much better than getting up early to trek down to the zoo and in fact I left my house 5 minutes before I was supposed to meet everyone. That wasn't such a good thing as I didn't exactly know where the house was that everyone was meeting at, but I walked up the road until I found them. My neighbors are organized! We received a bright orange vest (so the nutcases who drive too fast on the narrow road would see us), plenty of trash bags, gloves, and long-handled trash picker-upper thingies. I was super excited to use my new tool since I'd never had the opportunity to use one before.
I set off up one of the side roads because when I walk Riley over there I see a ton of trash and I was rewarded with plenty of trash (unlike the zoo where we fought over the trash!) I used my new tool to grope in the bushes and was rewarded with discarded cans, empty fertilizer bags, and much more. After I cleaned up that street, I turned around and headed back to the main road where everyone else was. We had a pretty good turn out and there were plenty of people helping to clean up the road. However, I was disappointed to find lots of cigarette butts and cans still littering the road where our crew had already been. They must have been picky and only looked for what I call "glamorous trash" meaning large, relatively clean stuff. I go for everything, especially nasty cigarette butts - my number one pet peeve, especially since I had my super-cool tool and wore gloves. On my friend FirePhrase's blog, my other friend Washington Gardener suggested that cigarette litterers should be made to pick up discarded butts for a full day. I quite agree. I was pretty ticked off at these litterers as I made my way down the road.
We've lived in this neighborhood for four years now but this was my first time participating in the clean-up and I'm glad I did. I really got to know some people and we're talking about throwing a community BBQ for our small cul-de-sac of 10 houses. I also helped mother earth breathe a little easier and that feels pretty good.
2 comments:
That's so funny. When I was doing my trash day, we talked about how excited we got about what you call glamorous trash (love that, btw). We'd all go racing for the nice big pieces that make your bag look nice and full.
Plus glam trash(TM) is relatively clean so it's not gross to pick up and also big, which is why people go for it vs the tiny cigarette butts or nasty, dirty half-squished stuff you find.
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