April 13, 2014

Harry, Mom and I finished our garbage collection this morning without any additional injuries…

It had rained quite hard the day before and had caused us to abandon our efforts about half way to our goal. The rain that began while we were still out collecting, turned into a downpour punctuated by big booming thunder and cracks of lightning.

There was also dime-sized hail that made Mom express her sincere concern for her brand new roof.

The rain, thunder and lightning lasted for hours as the storm cells rolled through our area, one after another.

Harry and I had just settled into each of our twin inflatable beds when Mom called up the stairs, “The severe weather warnings are good 'til 5 a.m.,”  she explained.

Terrific, I thought.  Spring in Wisconsin.

It immediately brought back memories of being awakened in the middle of the dark night and hurried down the stairs and into the basement, to wait out the storms and high winds that seemed way too common in our childhood.

Only slightly better weather, upon waking, encouraged our efforts to collect the remaining trash (left by countless careless motorists along our little slice of country road) before Harry’s regular bath time at Auntie Laura’s house.

All told, we collected and filled two black contractor-sized garbage bags, 2 plastic birdseed bags (similar-sized to the contractor bags), in addition to the larger pieces of garbage including a tire (with the metal rim), more tire rubber (without the rim), a large metal sign, large plastic pieces of bumpers and other car parts, plastic outside trim pieces for houses or sheds, as well as twisted metal fence posts.

We found fast food containers and papers, Styrofoam cups, 48-ounce cups with plastic covers and straws, large bottles (glass and plastic), a car mirror, a Chapstick container, plastic bags, rubber gloves, Wal-Mart receipts, lottery tickets, empty cigarettes packs, a plastic razor, a fingernail polish remover bottle, Qtips, a dryer sheet, candy and granola wrappers and a huge mulch bag.

And lots of other paper and plastic in varying stages of decomposition.

Mom said she also once collected condoms and an X-rated video.

Lucky her.

The most prolific of the items?

Beer containers - both cans and bottles. 

And cigarette filters.

Cigarette butts continue to be the most commonly littered item in the United States and around the world according to About.com.

Unfortunately, there is a misconception about those filters – the part that looks like white cotton is actually a form of plastic called cellulose acetate.

A single filter contains more than 12,000 fibers.

By itself, cellulose acetate is very, very slow to degrade and depending on the conditions, the cigarette butt can take anywhere from 18 months to 10 years to decompose.

But that isn’t the worst part.

Used cigarette filters are full of toxins that leach into the ground and water sources. And most filters are discarded with bits of tobacco still attached, further polluting our environment with nicotine.

So, I implore you:  Put your butt(s) where it belongs!

In the garbage…and not along my roadside.

It was also quite remarkable that most cars and trucks that passed us along our litter collecting route didn’t even slow in the slightest as they passed us.

I wore a reflective vest, looking more like the safety patrol officer than a trash collector.

It was an overcast, very gray day and I wanted those warp-speed vehicles to take notice as we lumbered along the roadside with our cart.

Handy trash (and leaf) cart.

Again, when we'd accomplished our task, piled the garbage bags in one spot to await "Garbage Day Wednesday" and cleaned and returned the cart to the garage...it felt good, cleaning up even just a little piece of our environment.

But it also made me think about multiplying the garbage that we collected by hundreds and thousands of miles of roadways.

Sad, really. 

Such disrespect and general lack of consideration for the world we ALL live in.

And if Harry is going to have any earth left…where plants and flowers thrive and there is fresh water for the woodland animals, beautiful vistas to explore…everyone else – to a man - is going to have to help.