Today there was so much trash on my property and around my block, I set out, as I usually do, with my trash can and grabber. Here’s what I found:

Who is riding in a car and drinking?

Fast food trash

More fast food trash.

Is that where that goes?

These have been thrown out by an unidentified neighbor now for years who drinks them fast before they get home, throwing it out the window around my house, I assume, so they’re not discovered once they get home. I’ve collected about 40 or so of these over the years.

What I collected today in a half block of my home. Liquor containers, cigarette butts, fast food refuse, water bottles, etc. No dirty diapers…this time.

Seperating the trash…

…from the recyclables.

If, after looking at/watching all this evidence (and that’s just in a half block of my home on Doney Street) I would suspect you’d be feeling the same distress that I feel about this situation. I’ve been picking up trash in a half-block radius now for over 11 years. It never fails to infuriate to me. I have spent over 11 years of my life upgrading and lifting up the quality of my home and neighborhood and ignorant trash roles through and degrades it all.
I can’t specifically say what the solution is but I’m willing to have an all-nighter, if that’s what it takes to tackle this problem. It would be easy to simply look to our city’s government but they have hired two people, through the Service Dept. to go around Whitehall with buckets and grabbers, which I applaud. The problem is multi-pronged and certainly there could be a government/citizen alliance to come up with more impactful solutions. After all, all the shiny new construction projects in the world won’t last if trash blows like tumbleweeds through their grounds and at every intersection and Creekside there are mounds of trash degrading our community in the eyes of all who pass through. We’ve got to do better.