Sometimes I find myself standing, almost outside of myself, wondering why I do this. I wonder what the people driving past think: that I’m someone doing a community service sentence or that I own this stretch of land along Hood River’s Cascade Street? Usually when I pick up litter, I carry a used-plastic bag, one of the many I’ve found and cleaned from previous litter pickups. Today I decided to pile the litter up, and the pile has grown to an impossible-to-miss size.
[/media-credit] An hour’s work yielded this pile of trash picked up right along Hood River’s busiest street, Cascade.
I decided to pile it up, when it occurred to me how many people drive this road. Thirteenth Street ends here sending people onto what is Hwy. 30. On this late Friday afternoon, a steady stream drives past.
I feel good when I pick up litter: freeing plants from plastic bags or whatever covers them. They will once again get sunlight and rainwater after long hot summers. I usually get a peaceful feeling–like some kind of meditation, and so I try to do it with grace. But today, I feel some unfocused anger. Who or what to blame?
It’s dismaying to see how much accumulated in the months since I picked it up a year ago. I start to feel that I’m the only one who cares, the only one, period, who picks up litter. Other people tell me they do, too, but today I feel I’m the only one, heroic. I start thinking that the city, the county, and ODOT (who must own this stretch) should pay me to do this.
Once a guy walking behind me, as I made my way up the street picking up litter, told me I was on a futile exercise. But mostly through all the years, people have stopped or called out to say thanks. It always makes me feel great.
Years ago I sent away for a grabber. You can pick things up without bending over or getting your hands dirty. You ‘grab’ things that are just out of reach. Today it’s a big help, because the trash-filled bushes are so thick.
The first thing I pick up is a gallon milk jug half-full of now curdled milk. Holding my nose, I pour it out along the tall wood fence that lines this section. The white line stands out in the brown dirt. Moving a few yards west to avoid the smell, I start the pile with it.
I like people to see someone doing this happy, but today I’m defiant. Piece by piece the pile grows: an empty cigarette package, two chunks of rigid-black-plastic nondescript car parts, a liter pop bottle, a deflated pink birthday balloon–its perky message crumpled, candy wrappers, Styrofoam cups, potato chip bags, empty water and juice bottles, a brown-glass beer bottle, a plastic pop glass from McDonalds, a plastic container that once held cookies or crackers, innumerable plastic bags, another gallon milk container, a plastic clam shell, a newspaper advertising section, a smashed red plastic cup, paper sandwich wrappers, cardboard beer package.
The pile grows wider and higher till I begin to wonder if I will need to go up to the house and bring the pickup.
As passionate as I am about picking this stuff up, I TRY not to lecture. No one likes to be lectured. But I can tell you why I keep at it. I think that maybe this one plastic bag I pick up will not be washed into the sewer system, will not then sweep down the Columbia on into the ocean, and no sea creature will gobble it up thinking it’s some juicy morsel and fill it stomach with plastic that will slowly starve it to death. And I won’t have to see any more pictures that some good-Samaritan veterinarian will take of yet another sea bird, sea turtle, or whale with its belly cut open exposing a gut full of bottle caps, scraps of plastic bags, and bits of fishing line.
Thank you so much for this volunteer service! That pile looks like our weekend pick up along Rand Road. Unlike you, I do get very angry and wonder why anyone can choose to fling lots of trash out of their car. Remember the public servic campaign “Give a Hoot, don’t pollute”? Maybe we need to bring this seemingly common sense message back.
Tamara, I have noticed that once you and your family arrived the stretch along Rand Road is litter-free. It wasn’t like that until you moved there. I so appreciate that. Hoot! Hoot!
Susan, I so admire you for doing this. I’m going to start carrying a bag when I walk (if I can remember). Just think if everyone who walked or ran on the streets did this! What a difference it would make. Thank you.
Thank you, Kay. That would be wonderful.
I loved your essay, Susan, and I think it deserves a wider audience, like the readers of the Hood River News and the High Country News! Of course, the people responsible for all that litter probably never read anything, anywhere. Hopefully, when the uncaring and ignorant litterbugs see the piles you leave, they might start to change their disgusting habits.
Quite a few years ago, after hearing about how you would regularly pick up litter on other streets in Hood River when you walked to and from your work, I got inspired and started doing it too! Almost daily, I pick up similar kinds of garbage during my 4-mile walking loop from my home in SE Portland and over the hills of Mt. Tabor Park. I find that awful stuff everywhere–even in front of up-scale homes, quiet streets, and park trails where volunteer litter patrols occasionally roam. What really galls me are the cigarette butts, fresh beer cans/bottles, and colorful plastic bags of dog poop left along the trails. Fortunately, the park has some trash and recycling containers which really help–but they are few and far between.
Except for certain spots downtown, the our city’s residential, collector, and arterial streets don’t have litter barrels or recycling bins. There probably should be (even in Hood River), but cities don’t want to bear the extra costs involved–especially when certain folks would dump their home trash in them.
So, let’s keep doing our good deeds, Susan and you others: always carry a spare plastic bag or two where we walk, and take a little extra time to pick up litter, piece by piece. I think some observers will get inspired to do the same! But I’m not convinced we’ll change the habits of most litterbugs…
Darvel
Thank you, Darvel. The admiration is mutual. I am so grateful for the stellar work you have done and continue doing that have made our part of the world a place where nature knows it has a champion.
Thank you Susan for helping keep the downtown clean. We have been trash walking Punchbowl Rd and the wooded area around the Punchbowl Falls for 34 years. Tommy even repelled down a cliff up behind us once to clean up a truck load of garbage someone dumped. There was everything from computer monitors to plastic buckets all headed for the Hood River. We put a 55 gallon drum for trash chained up over at the Punchbowl near the gate and someone stole it. I will continue to trash walk because it is important and I think now.that you have your post, others will also. Keep up the greatness you do.
Peg, THANK you. I knew there was a tribe of us doing this work. Three cheers to you and Tommy.
Thanks! … this inspires me to bend down and pick a little more than usual — I will !
We’re glad you’re inspired, Paul. Thank you for your willingness to help!
I always see those blue signs that say “…this mile cleaned by BS Troop #1, or the __Realty company.”
Advertising along a highway that doesn’t look any cleaner than the mile before or the mile after.
I agree, Bill. I think we have to keep picking it up. Of course, one of the problems is that people only have to pick it up once a year. But when I pick up a plastic bag I think that’s one less to end up in the river, ocean, or smothering plants. Do you have a spot your work on?