So last Monday (January 28) I cleaned up in the field for the first time since September. The necessary elements came together – mild weather, not too much snow on the ground, not having to work, and being able to muster the will to do it – so I hit the trails. I couldn’t find my big heavy-duty trash bags, so I made due with our smaller, flimsy kitchen bags. It was breezy, so I knew whatever trash I picked up would probably be replaced in short order, but it still needed to be done. I made my usual circuit, starting on the hill and turning past the Countryside rec center park and down toward the baseball fields, which I’m now informed the hoa is adopting, so hopefully that area won’t be as trashy in the future. It tends to be pretty bad, with drink cans and bottles, sunflower seed bags and the like. I ended up spending some time in the copse of Russian Olive saplings behind one of the ball fields, where there was an annoying amount of cardboard boxes and plastic bags wrapped around the trees. So many plastic shopping bags. I lost count of how many I picked up and pulled out of trees and bushes – several dozen at least, this day. If you still use these, you need to stop. They are a scourge on the environment that must be wiped out at the source – don’t get them in the first place. Refuse bags if you’re purchasing few enough items that you can carry everything with your hands, and otherwise purchase some of the cheap reusable canvas shopping bags that are now readily available at most retailers and grocery stores. Otherwise, your bags will end up here, in the creek, or there, wrapped around a tree, or there, floating in the lake or the ocean. They’re ugly, overly durable, and they kill animals that mistakenly try to eat them. They need to be outlawed, but until then, refuse to use them. And then there are the plastic bags that newspapers come in. I get a lot of those, too. As much as I enjoy reading the paper, I’ve recently decided to agree with my fiancé they’re just too wasteful. A new plastic bag and a new tree every day of the year… maybe we should just get our news online and on TV.
I continued on the main path, at the base of the hill, and filled the first bag and half of the second before coming to the trail junction. A hawk flew over the field, over the prairie dog town, the place you’re most likely to see a raptor or other predator here. I dropped off the first bag at my sign and continued around on the main trail. School was out, and I passed a cute couple of goth kids. There was a boy and a girl, possibly high school freshmen but more likely sixth graders (the clothes and the makeup made it kind of hard to tell). They both wore mostly black, the boy had a dog collar and the girl wore some interesting black makeup designs and a fluffy, fox-like tail that hung down to her knees. The boy was attempting to impress her by trying to climb a tree. If it were any more precious, I would have had to stop and declare with rising intonation, “Ahhh!”
A utility/telecom crew of some sort did some work on the side of the hill above Mayfair park last year, and in addition to flattening all the vegetation there they also left behind a twenty foot long section of PVC pipe, along with a smaller six-foot section and another small enough to put in my bag. Several years ago when they repaved 106 Avenue and installed one of those black plastic construction fences along the border of the field, they left it behind in a similar manner. This is city owned Open Space… why are they allowed to do that? I dragged the shorter section of pipe down to Mayfair park and then continued, and filled up the third bag from the creek near the little bridge, where I retrieved another section of plastic piping. This one was, about six inches in diameter, four or five feet long and made of corrugated black plastic, was apparently intended as part of a storm drain into the creek, but it eroded out and was loose in the creek bed. I found what appeared to be a still functional micro RC plane lost in the bushes. I deposited it on the sign that tells you to clean up after your dog and dragged the pipe and the third bag up to the drop spot.
It started to cool off around 4 when the sun went behind the clouds and the hawk went hunting. Perched in a sapling near the prairie dog town, it swooped down and hit the ground in the field. I watched while it secured its prize, and then took off, mouse in talon, for a dead standing cottonwood in the center of the field that hawks favor. I finished dragging the smaller PVC pipe over to the drop point and, surprised at how much I can get done when I get started at midday rather than near sundown, I hit the 106th trail and sidewalk. My strategy for cleaning the creek here is to walk all the way down to the end and then clean up as I walk back toward the drop point, rather than cleaning up on the way and having to haul a full bag all the way back (the entire pattern of my cleaning route is designed to minimize the amount of time I spend with heavy, full bags of trash slung over my shoulder). But it didn’t avail me this time, since all the trash was waiting for me at the far end, at the mouth of the creek. The combination of wind, flowing water, and cattails here has obviously been piling up the trash for some time. It was apparent that there was too much to fit in my final bag (I only brought 4, since I usually only use 1-3). Luckily an entire trash can was in the creek, so I stuffed some of the larger items in there and set it on the curb. It probably belonged to one of the residents on the other side of the street and had blown away in recent winds. I hoped they would claim it and not mind the new trash content. There were still boxes with ripped Christmas wrapping paper lying about. I had to pick only the most unsightly items because of the limited space in my bag, and that end of the creek still looked in a shambles when I left.
Volunteer litter clean up is an interesting job in that it both combats and feeds cynicism. It’s a rule that when you bend down to pick up one piece of trash, you’ll notice another nearby, and another and another. You can break your back cleaning up a small area, and almost feel like you’ve accomplished something, only to look up and see a sea of litter stretching before you. Is this a park or a public landfill? It’s easy to lose hope for humanity when you see its detritus cluttering the landscape and when you realize that a large part of what you’re picking up – pop cans, Sunny D bottles, Capri Sun pouches, pop and water bottles, candy wrappers, and so on – are being dropped on the ground by kids, kids who don’t care and whose parents don’t care enough to teach them any ethics on the subject. I grumble and think misanthropic thoughts as I shift a heavy bag from one tired arm to the other. There’s always more. I’ll never win this battle.
On the other hand, uncovering a pretty spot feels good, and lots of passersby openly admire your effort, and that feels good, and the work itself is good, and there’s plants and raptors and cute goth kids, and you know that most of the trash isn’t being maliciously littered, but rather collects here passively, in the low point of the neighborhood, by the action of wind and water on an imperfect system of resource use and waste collection – too many trash cans left outside without lids, not enough recycling. These things, and even people’s level of consciousness about their own actions, can be changed and improved, and I hope they will be. Maybe I can’t win, but I think some battles are only lost if you stop fighting. It was still light when I headed for home, which is a better way to end it than in the dark. I’ll have to try to get more early starts in the future.
