Litter Patrol

While hiking around some mountain trails surrounding Phoenix, I am sorely disappointed over the amount and type of litter strewn about. The view was spoiled by plastic bags, giant convenient store drink cups, plastic bottles, food containers, and too much broken glass. What surprise me is there are ample and visible large 55-gallon trashcans located a few yards away. Did the trash blow out of the secured cans or are some of the park’s visitors the type who also leave their grocery cart a few parking spots from the cart return?

A self-described neat freak, I grabbed the plastic bag stuck flapping in a bush and starting stuffing in as much litter as it would hold. I could have stayed there for hours filling several large trash bags. A young boy watched me and told his father, “I don’t understand why people still litter.” Me neither, kid.

As a member of Keep Smyrna Beautiful back in Georgia, I wished the quarterly Adopt-A-Mile volunteers were there with me. Armed with their handy pickers, we would have had that place cleaned up in no time. If each park visitor that day picked up just one thing, most of the litter could have been removed off the trail. It pains me to leave that park knowing more trash will eventually find its way back.

With the New Year ringing in I vow to carry my own litter patrol supplies wherever I travel. Be it locally around my own neighborhood or hiking other trails, I’ll have at the ready a plastic bag, gloves, reflective vest, and anti-bacterial wipes. Maybe I should have put on my Christmas list a personalized aluminum handy picker.