I fought the trash and the trash won

This week was my town's annual "get rid of the litter day." This is one of those volunteer events where, if you don't think too much in the long term, you can feel like you're doing a lot of good. Fifty-some people met (I was hoping there'd be more; I talked it up to all my classes but I guess no one had time) and we fanned out across the town to do battle with all the fast-food bags, drink cups, beer bottles, and other assorted and more horrifying things. (At least I've never found syringes or used prophylactics; I know people who have, though).

I took the street that leads up to my office building. By virtue of the fact that it's a small residential street off of one of the main arteries, by virtue of the fact that it's a wooded area, by virtue of the fact that it has a low speed limit, and by virtue of the fact that at one end of it is student apartments and at the other are some of the more "wealthy" subdivisions housing a number of teenagers with lots of allowance and not a lot of supervision, it tends to accumulate a lot of trash.

I started up at my building (the good thing being I had a secure place to park my car as I worked. Up on the campus grounds there was really NO trash, that's because we have an extremely diligent grounds crew.

But once I got into the wooded area, it got BAD.

I think part of this is that, although someone technically owns the wooded area, there are no houses built on it yet, and I think the owner lives in the City. So they don't see it, and unlike a house where someone actually LIVES, there's no one to go, "Oh, crud, some idiot left a bunch of beer bottles on the lawn; I better go pick those up."

I had latex gloves (which are nasty and I still haven't got the smell off my hands despite showering, washing my hands multiple times, and even putting on strongly-scented hand lotion) but they kept getting torn up because there is greenbriar growing along the roadside. (I also have a big scratch on my leg where the greenbriar snagged me through my jeans.)

I probably covered only 1/2 mile total in the nearly 3 hours I worked. (For comparison, I can walk a mile in 12-15 minutes without really breaking a sweat).

Most of what I picked up were beer bottles. (I suppose that's because some of our local disadvantaged folks often comb roadsides for aluminum cans that they can sell at the scrap yard). Beer bottles are HEAVY. And they smell nasty. And they attract snails - most of the bottles had a number of small snails in them. Or dead flies.

I filled seven large (like, the "lawn leaf bag" size) trash bags. I don't know what that size is but it's about twice the size of the 30 gallon bags I use for kitchen trash.

I didn't find anything TOO scary except there were some empty baggies and a couple of empty Zig Zag rolling paper containers. And some aerosol cans from different products; the way they were grouped and tossed make me wonder if perhaps said "more money than brains" teenagers were using them to get high off of. (It's their brain cells, I just don't appreciate the thought that they may be driving on the road the same time I am, or that I may wind up supporting them with my tax dollars when they fry all their synapses and can't take care of themselves any more).

And lots and lots of beer bottles. Both the standard size and the "forties."

I think I mentioned, beer bottles are really heavy? Even empty?

There were other imbibables' remains: several bottles from cinnamon schnapps. (The hell? I've never drunk schnapps but the thought of cinnamon schnapps makes my stomach turn inside out a little). And bottles from some kind of cheap whisky. (I figure it must be a cheap kind because the bottles were plastic and it was a brand name I'd never heard of).

And there were lots of soft drink cups. And Pepsi bottles (a few with a suspiciously yellow liquid in them. I didn't uncap those bottles to empty them...). And wrappers from hamburgers. And styrofoam "clamshells." And one happy meal box, which, though I hoped a bit, the toy was gone from.

Very few cigarette butts but I suspect that it's not the kind of place where people would be in a position to throw their butts; it's sort of a twisty road and it might be hard to take your hands off the wheel to pull the cig out of your mouth.

I also found a Coke can that must have been there since the 70s; it was a very heavy metal (not aluminum?) and had the old, pull-ring type opening.

I worked for about 3 hours (the time for the pick up was nine to noon but I knew they started serving the free lunch at about 11:30). At the end I REALLY wanted to finish but I couldn't, quite. Partly because it was nearly noon but mainly because I had absolutely zero energy left.

I have borderline low blood pressure. Normally it hovers at about 110/50 but when I do a lot of bending and reaching where my head's below my knees a lot, for some reason I get some kind of weird positional-hypotension like thing and I get dizzy really easily and get exhausted fast. And that was starting to set in towards the end, where I'd have to stop and straighten up and wait for my b.p. to equilibrate so I didn't feel like I was going to pass out.

And I realized, suddenly: if you don't stop now, you won't be able to walk back up the hill to your car.

(Part of it was probably that I didn't take any water with me; I have problems when I get a little dehydrated).

So I gave up just short of my goal, tied up the last bag, placed it with the others (the Solid Waste Department guys are going to go around and pick them up this afternoon) and headed back to my car.

I almost didn't make it up the hill and wondered if I could flag someone down when they drove past to help me. But I finally did.

And I got back to the central location. I washed my hands, got my free hot dog, and got what I really wanted - water. Pounded down a couple bottles of water and started to feel better after a bit.

They do drawings for prizes and I won a t-shirt, which is nice.

The best thing though was at one point, in the middle of my pickup (remember: I was working alone), a guy drove by in his car. Now, most of the people who drove by gave me these stupid or questioning looks, like "Why is that crazy woman out picking up trash" or "Hey, is she having to work off community service hours? Is she someone I know? Can I gossip about her?"

Anyway, the guy who drove by - in a little red car - he slowed down and gave me the thumbs-up sign as he passed. So, thank you, anonymous guy, that made me feel a lot better to think that someone appreciated what I was doing.

I chose the route I chose because I drive by it every morning as I go to work. I thought it would be nice to be reminded every day (well, at least until the litter builds up again) of what I did.

Though I suppose I'll curse the litterbugs when I drive by and see that it's bad again. And it being Saturday night, it could very well get bad right away. But I'm trying to see it as those Zen water paintings, something that doesn't last but was still somehow worth doing at the time. Or maybe like a kind act in a ruthless world: it doesn't make MUCH difference, but it still makes A difference.