Thursday, October 25, 2007

Litterbugs Are Not Observant Mormons

Here are a couple of picture of the lake where I take my walks. You can see that some of the Canadian geese, in the autumn shot taken earlier in the week, are here already. Between now and winter, there will be tens of thousands of birds here covering the entire lake and ruining the water with their incredible amounts of defecation.

Fall
Summer
I have completed the trash clean up along both sides of the road where I walk. I think I've picked up about 8 full Hefty trash bags of litter. There's still new stuff everyday, but I've got it down where I've even picked up all the cigarette butts — my biggest pet peeve ever!

98% of the stuff is the same:
• Empty cigarette packs and cigarette butts.
• Beer cans and bottles. If this country thinks we've got the drinking and driving problem solved, I'm here to tell you we don't have the drinking while driving problem solved based on the number of open empty containers I find.
• The soda cans are always a variety of Pepsi, never Coke.
• Styrofoam coffee cups and plastic lids from the Stewart's Shoppe (the NorthEast equivalent of 7-11) up the road.
• Lottery scratch offs.

I wasn't "doing this for the money" to be gained from the beverage deposit. But, after I started getting so many bottles and cans, I decided to take them back to the recycling center just to them back into the recycle system rather than the dump.

I feel like I've really accomplished something here in my little part of the world, and the neighbors I've chatted with are all supportive and thankful. Think globally, act locally!
*

6 comments:

Lacey said...

Beautiful fall color. I can't believe you've picked up all that trash. That is so cool. You rule dude. (I'm SO stuck in the sixties, and I don't care).

We always walk in the park and never see litter. However, some people do not pick up their dog's poop. I've thought about bringing extra bags and picking up, but god, it's bad enough picking up Lacey's. I just can't pick up someone else's poop. But I always wonder...OK your dog is hunched over in this incredibly beautiful public park, taking a huge dump...what are you doing? What are you thinking? How do you just walk away from that?

RG said...

One time, when I was walking my dog in my neighborhood, some lady was walking her dog about thirty feet ahead of me, and yakking on her cellphone, while her "little precious" was taking the biggest dump I've ever seen come out of a small dog. Anyway, she just walks away, still yakking on her cell, when I, having brought two bags with me, because I can never tell with my dog, picked-up up her dog's shit, caught up with her, tapped on the shoulder and said, "hey lady - you forgot something back there" and I smashed her dog's shit into her jacket. I know it wasn't nice and actually was quite mean, but everytime I see her on the street with her dog now, she has a plastic bag tied to the leash. Oh and she crosses the street when she sees me coming too. LOL

Anonymous said...

What? Someone committing a random, unselfish act for others? What is this country coming to? I agree with the philosophy you quoted concerning acting locally. I, for one, am proud of you for taking action.

Those pictures of the lake are gorgeous. You really are rocking the fall colors up there. We went from green, to brown, to down. I have only seen one maple showing off it's gold near my home. ONE.

Mom said...

thank you

evilganome said...

Aaaaargh. Canada Geese. They have become year round residents in Boston. Goose poop everywhere. You are going to find Boston disgusting. Worst litter bugs in the world.

michael sean morris said...

Litter is disgusting. Having just come off a garbage strike in Vancouver, our streets are utterly filthy. I routinely pick up the litter around my building (at least once a week) and the property manager hires someone else to do it once a week, and neither of us lacks for crap to pick up. If it isn't people who are too lazy or thoughtless to clean up after themselves, or binners rummaging through our bins for bottles, it's the crows.

Keep up the good work. Imagine, if only another couple thousand people thought like you what a nice clean community you'd have.