Green Up Time!
Today was a pretty good day for "Green Up" day. Laban, Allura, and I walked down our half of Pinecrest Dr (to the bottom of the hill in the middle of our street) and to the end of the street that comes out on Suzie Wilson Rd. We did both sides of the road and also did quite a bit of the tree line between our neighbor's house and the shopping center and the whole tree line behind the neighbor's house and ours that lies between us and the shopping center and Handy Suites. We also crossed the Handy Suites road and did this side of the ravine.
I think it is a given fact that people are inconsiderate slobs, but that isn't really something that we think about too much until your on the side of the road disgusted by the amount of trash everyone throws out their window. All I can say is, what a bunch of fucking assholes. What really burns me up is that most of them don't live on this street so they don't care.
We filled 3 of those Green Up Day green garbage bags just from half of our street and the tree lines. We didn't see anyone else out working on our street that day either. Someone (I think the town) did the other end of the street so that worked out well, at least the whole street got done.
Here's a tally of the top 4 things we found:
#4- Fast food wrappers. Not much of a surprise there, people in a hurry to eat are also in a hurry to get rid of their trash. Not sure how much fast food trash there actually was, I know it was less than the top 3 and more than anything else that came next. Thanks for dumping it on my street assholes......
#3- Empty cigarette packs. Marlboro brand was number 1 for those. Various flavors, found several in menthol. I would say we found somewhere around 15 empty packs.
#2- Bottles and cans. No surprise alcoholic beverages out numbered everything in this department. Sports drinks seemed to be the next most numerous here. We also found bottles from water, juice and other grab n' go drinks. The number one specific brand we found was Budweiser, mostly Bud light cans. There were about 10 Budweiser cans, and I would say about 20 to 30 more bottles and cans of various other drinks. Oh, and thank you to the dickheads that threw out glass that got smashed, that's real thoughtful of you.
#1- Cigarette butts. There were too many to count. They would have numbered in the hundreds I am sure and they are the only thing I didn't pick up. I did pick up the ones in front of my house between the sidewalk and the road. If I'd done that the entire length of the road I'd still be there!
Strangest Thing We Found
An entire cardboard box of non-perishable food items (or what was left of them). I noticed this box back this Winter, discarded in the edge of the tree line in front of the shopping center right next to our neighbor's house. The boxes of food seemed full at the time but I had no idea where the stuff came from so I left it alone. When we picked the box up the cereal boxes and box of pasta were now empty and I startled myself as well as the meadow mole that was living under the box. He was apparently was very well fed.
Everything else was pretty run of the mill. Wrappers from candy, lost and now mangled gloves, a window scrapper with brush (pretty well flattened at that), I think Green Up Day is a good family activity since it gets us outside and actually gets us to participate in something for our community. Maybe if more people participated they wouldn't be so rude with their trash. I know Allura has an appreciation for how much people are slobs, she says it herself now when she sees trash on the ground.