Community Clean Up

I’ve written about Earth before. Several times, actually. I shared a video last June narrated by Julia Roberts. I have since learned there are a slew of these video narrated by various celebrities and cover all facets of our Mother Earth. Oceans. Rainforests. The Sky.

Today, Team Wood did our small part. Every spring our community organizes a town clean-up. Today was the fourth annual clean up. According to organizers there were about 30 volunteers who showed up. She guessed the numbers were low because today was the first full day of sunshine in over a week. We knew where we wanted to clean, so, upon registration, we just informed them where we were going. We were handed 8 very large garbage bags and 1 clear bag for refundables, then set off. The sun was shining. The kids were excited. With gloves donned we were cleaning up a ditch along main street. 

That’s a glimpse of what it was like before we started. This gully was about 75 meters long and it looked like this the entire length. It was also parallel to a heavily trafficked road. This is what visitors to our town would see. So we cleaned it up. 

The boys were on a mission for an hour and half and DW and I were both impressed with their determination and attitudes. In past clean up they had been less than helpful. DW talked to them afterwards telling them to remember this when they are older and out with their friends. The Earth is not a garbage can. When people treat it like this we end up having to clean up their mess. So should they or their friends be tempted to just throw their garbage on the ground, remember this day, remember this is the only Earth we have. How difficult would be to just put it in a garbage can?

Here’s what it looked like after filling 4 very large garbage bags and a bag of refundables…

How do you help Mother Earth?If you’re looking for a clean place to go, find my exceptionally tidy place on Facebook and Twitter!
 

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Eco Kids

It all starts with you.

Or me.

Or our kids.

Or someone else starts it.

At some point someone will get tired of seeing litter and will decide to do something about it. Someone mentioned that a group should get together to clean up an area. Some else asked, “Why does it have to be a group? Why not just take a garbage bag with you when you take your dog for walk? Why not take a bag with you when you go to the park? Why not?”

It’s the little things that matter the most.

Every spring our town calls for a band of volunteers to help clean up our town. Volunteers register and either pick or get assigned a small area to clean up. Naturally, some areas are worse than others. It just depends on where the winds blow and what’s around to catch the garbage; fences, tall grasses, bushes, buildings, etc… We picked the area in front of the bar/Chinese restaurant.

DW likes Chinese food. The bar is for a significantly younger crowd.

It’s a pretty set up they have. Volunteers spend a couple hours on a Saturday morning picking up garbage and beautifying the town we live in. The town provides gloves, garbage bags and garbage bag pick up. Actually, it was a local car dealership who offered to pick up the full garbage bags. The town also provided t-shirts, BBQ hotdogs, apples, bananas and Timbits afterward.

This event had been planned for weeks so, of course, it rained. It poured. Cats and dogs kind of rain. The kind of rain Fort Mac so desperately needs but isn’t getting. We survived an hour of the rains and made significant headway in our clean up when the kids were done and approaching melt down. It was a bit chilly being so wet. We tried not to get too mad at them, even though there was still more garbage. We cut our loses, decided we had cleaned enough in the rain and the rest would wait for better weather.

Before

After

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So perhaps the next time you go for a walk, perhaps with your dog or perhaps your cat or even your lobster if you live in Atlantic Canada, you could take a bag, big or small, with you to pick any litter you might find along the way. Imagine if we all…

If only there was a way to stop it at its source…

This is exactly what we were finding. Sad.