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| A bag of trash collected in the park |
Motivations: keep the place clean so it stays clean (people are less likely to drop litter in a litter-free environment) & prevent trash from flowing into our streams, rivers, and eventually making its way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
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| Trash free view of Wheaton Regional Park |
It is easy to retrieve a plastic bag that is hanging off of a tree or bush and fill it with bottles, cans, and other plastic bags as one walks around outside. The amount of plastic bag waste is amazing, especially given the Montgomery County plastic bag fee. I can't even imagine the quantity of plastic bag waste there must have been flying around our parks before that fee!
I walked to the metro several times in the last week due to a flat bike tire, and also picked up a bag of recyclables en route yesterday.
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| Stormwater catchment system near train depot in Wheaton Regional Park |
I've been interested in organizing or participating in a neighborhood trash cleanup. Perhaps we could organize as it gets a little warmer?
ReplyDeleteThat would be great! How about a day in April around Earth Day?
DeleteI would be into this too. Sometimes when I take my four-year-old son for a walk in our neighborhood we take a plastic bag to pick up trash. He loves sorting it into our trash and recycling bins afterwards. I think doing it in a group would be a great way to show him that it's everyone's job to care for our public spaces, even if we didn't put the trash there ourselves.
DeleteBy the way, I'm excited to have found this blog -- just got here via Wheaton Patch. I knew about JUTP and Silver Spring Singular but didn't know there was a Wheaton-specific blog.
This is a great idea -- although I am embarrassed to admit that I cannot even remember to bring bags with me to the grocery store, much less to bring bags when I am walking around the neighborhood or to the Metro (when I go shopping I wind up taking my groceries out of the cart and throwing them in the back of my car unbagged rather than purchasing plastic or paper bags from the checkout).
ReplyDelete"Lucky" for us, a bag is usually available on the route hanging from a branch or floating through the air. Just grab that one and use it! :)
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