Litter Walks

First Walk - Results

Today was the first official LitterWalks.com litter walk, with one participant, on his lunch break. (That participant was me). The weather finally broke after our 40 days and 40 nights of rain in St. Louis, and Mayor Slay's weekend tweeting about litter inspired me to go out there and get this done.

The cart, ready to rock.

I covered a small area of Park Avenue between Vail and Truman Parkway, in about 35 minutes. Plenty of cigarette butts, especially where cars stop at the light between Park and Truman to turn left - I guess it's OK to toss your garbage out the window, since it's only a cigarette butt. I also found plenty of cans and bottles, Mardi Gras beads, someone's time card from work, candy wrappers galore, and a couple dozen paper, styrofoam, and plastic cups. People, if you have a drink, throw it into the garbage can nearby!

On that note, I do have some complaints. All of the waste cans I found were similar to the one below. They were filled to the brim with garbage, and a couple even had various pieces of trash strewn nearby. If people use the receptacles, can we get them emptied regularly?

On another note, if you're drinking something, put it in the waste basket. We really need to look at implementing a deposit law on cans and bottles to either discourage the waste or encourage people to come around and pick things up:

Supporting the hometown brewery!

In all, I'm pretty happy at the results. The street looks better, there's less garbage, and I found a number of things to recycle. I forgot to take a picture of all the waste - but those two bags above were both filled to the brim. In 35 minutes!

Quick Summary: 

Time spent: 35 minutes
Walkers: 1
Litter Collected: 5.8 pounds
Weirdest item: Someone's time card clock out slip from work
Most common item: Cigarette butts

Benefits of Litter Walks

What are the benefits of a litter walk?

 

These should be obvious, but I’d like to point of some of the less obvious benefits of taking a litter walk:

 

• Walking is an excellent way to reduce the risk of heart disease.
• The litter you pick up won’t be eaten by animals, attract pests, or blow into your yard.
• You can meet your neighbors.
• A messy environment promotes others to contribute further.
• Clean streets send a signal that people care about the area, and may help reduce crime.
• It encourages others in the neighborhood to take on a sense of neighborhood pride.
• Nicer streets mean visitors are more likely to want to live there – increasing the value of your home.

 

Ok, I realize some of these might be a bit of a stretch, but they’re certainly all plausible, right?

 

The gear you need

Litter walks are an easy way to go out, get some exercise, and feel good about making the neighborhood a cleaner place. You don’t need a lot of equipment and you don’t have to spend any money, but you certainly might find some items helpful.

There are a couple things you will absolutely need:

• Shoes. Hate to have you go for a walk without your shoes, especially with yucky litter around you might step on. Blech.
• Thick garbage bags that won’t tear. Nothing more frustrating than a garbage bag full of litter that rips in half – though it does give you more work to do.

Some other items that might be very helpful:

• A Grabber. These are great to save your back from reaching over a hundred times a day. Go to any theme park and you’ll see the cleanup crew using these. They’re professionals, so I trust their judgment. I like the kind with the pads on the end instead of the claw type, as they seem to be stronger.
• Rubber or latex gloves. I recommend rubber gloves, since you can wash and reuse them. Reduce, reuse, recycle, remember?
• A wagon, grocery cart, trolley, wheelbarrow, or anything else with wheels. If you’re going on a long walk, trust me, not carrying a heavy bag is a lifesaver.

What is a litter walk?

Grab a bag, go outside, and walk around for a bit. Pick up any litter you see, and either take it home and put it with your garbage, or for extra credit, sort it out and recycle it. Come back when you’re done.

…

Congratulations, you just completed your first litter walk. Simple, isn’t it?

The Litter Walks blog is an effort to highlight and encourage people to go out and clean up the places they live, the places they vacation, and the rest of our great planet. I’m a constant traveler, and get to visit a lot of cities across the globe – and one thing that always stands out to me is the amount of litter on every street corner, no matter how expensive the neighborhood. People just don’t do a very good job of picking up after themselves or ensuring that their trash gets put into a proper bin. By going out and picking up after everyone else, my hope is that we pressure others not to stick with their old littering habits, and the world becomes a cleaner place for everybody.

I live in St. Louis, an older city that’s seen more than its share of hard knocks. Still, it’s filled with beautiful architecture, wonderful people, and a great city atmosphere. One problem it does have in abundance, however, is litter. As I see it, there are two reasons for this: we have a lot of pedestrian traffic and we have a lack of places to put waste.

My first goal is to pick up at least 1000 pounds of litter over the next year. My second goal is to encourage neighborhood associations and the city to install trash containers in trouble spots to help contain the problem.

I hope that you’ll join me in this effort in your own neighborhood.