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!
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The Cadillac Of Recycling Programs

I was thinking a bit about recycling after I wrote about my bottled water guilt.

Of all the places I've lived, visited, or seen, the best recycling program was in Santa Ana, CA. Each home receives 3 large color-coded trash cans (or as my neighbor from Britain called them, litter bins). One is for yard waste...grass, leaves, etc. One is for recyclables...newspapers, and everything that has a recycle emblem on it such as juice jugs, detergent bottles, etc. The last bin is for everything else. Each week, three different garbage trucks come around and collected the refuse from their respective colored cans.

For those so inclined, there is a return fee on bottles (not water bottles, though) and cans so people are encouraged to be more recycle conscious and keep trash off the streets. In New York, bottles and cans are returned to the store where they are purchased. In California, you bring them to recycling centers located in various parking lots around town.

The process is easy, clean, and efficient. Other cities would be smart to set up a similar program.
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