Just Trashy
Woman in the Middle | October 25, 2015We had a citywide clean up day on Saturday. Hubby and I volunteered to clean up along one of our busy streets. We figure we can’t complain about the problem unless we are willing to be part of the solution. It was chilly yesterday morning, because, after all, it is the end of October. I put on long pants. That was a mistake because it warmed up really quickly. Not surprising because it got up to 92 degrees yesterday. For that and a lot of other reasons I only lasted about an hour. However, we did pick up close to four bags of trash in that hour. What can I say, we apparently live with a bunch of people who think throwing trash out of their speeding car is OK.
Based on my hour of roadside trash picking, I leaned a few things. I can tell not as many people smoke anymore, as I only found three cigarette packs. Lots of people in my neck of the woods eat at Jack in the Box. I can report that Starbucks customers aren’t too snooty to toss their empty cups out of their car windows. The act of getting food and drink at a fast food restaurant apparently turns people into cretins and pigs since most of the trash was fast food cups, boxes, and wrappers. Also, and this one is gross, a common way to dispose of dead chickens is to tie them up in a grocery bag or empty dog food bag and toss them beside the road. Based on my conversations with other volunteers, this was not necessarily a problem on every road in the city. I just managed to pick a chicken-centric road, apparently. Lucky me!
I only found one dirty diaper, one syringe (with needle capped – so kind of them to do that before they threw it out of the car), three tires and one refrigerator. Amazing what you can pick up, learn, and see in just one hour of road side clean up!
I used to do roadside clean–up when I lived in Crestline. I had found dirty magazines, fast-food wrappers, many cigarette butts, and an occasional syringe, but never any murdered chickens! (LOL)
I think those who take part in these types of clean ups are bloody great, I know of some who have done so themselves, not me though I usually don’t think about it but I at least do not litter.