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
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