This year during my regular Earth Day walk and cleanup along the main road near where I live, I decided to do something a little different and convert it into a mini photo project. I documented what I picked up in these photographs and live tweeted while I was picking stuff up. Well, the live-tweeting is over now, and I thought I would post this little summary of what I collected. I sorted these findings into eight different subject groups. I often end up quite disgusted with the carelessness of my fellow human beings after this event, so it is hard not to be overly negative.
This is a fairly small stretch of road, about a mile, our normal dog-walking area. I would say it has medium traffic, but given the road is to most people’s backyards, it seems to get little attention. During the summer, most of this trash gets cut up / picked up by the city mower service. But once that stops for the year, and then picks up in the next, things start to accumulate in between. I am not sure if the city picks up here or not, I have never seen them. So I don’t have a good basis for how long it took for these found pieces to accumulate. It could be since last fall, it could be from just a few weeks. It is hard to know for certain.
I remember being in Little Cayman last year and walking the beaches on the remote side of the island that was just piled with trash. Accumulations from debris floating from neighboring islands, the mainland, cruise ships, and the general problems we have with trash accumulations in our seas. This little bit is quite insignificant compared to what I saw there, or what exists elsewhere on this one and only planet of ours. But, it was something quite accessible for me, and something where I could at least contribute to my local landscape. If only everyone had the same thing in mind before they decided to throw whatever out their car window.
The positive note came at the very end when I was sorting through this stuff I picked up. While I was poking around the pile I dumped out of the trash bag in my backyard, a deer had wandered in. It was wondering what the heck I was doing sifting through this trash pile. I said the land is a little cleaner for the both of us now, and fortunately, everything I picked up looked like it could be recycled, except for the green glass Romanian wine bottle.
If you happen to read this in time, I am also giving away a print on bamboo for Earth Day from my Facebook page. Check it out here.
All photos are from my iPhone5.
Here in Eastern Iowa, there’s not a lot of natural areas left that haven’t been plowed under to make way for corn fields and soy bean fields.
One of my favorite places to go film is Indian Creek Nature Center.
One thing that I’ve noticed over the years I’ve spent filming there is the more effort it takes to reach a location, the less amount of trash you find.
The Sac and Fox trail is accessible from paved parking lots. The trail is groomed and level. On weekends in the summer, it’s like an interstate with people.
On the Sac and Fox trail, you’ll find cigarette butts, candy wrappers, water bottles, broken styrofoam coolers, soiled baby diapers and even a TV. I think it took more effort to haul the TV out there then it would have npbeen to throw it in the dumpster.
Across a tallgrass prairie and up a dirt trail is Founder’s Grove. I’ve only encountered a handful of people o nthis trail over the years. I’ve never encountered any trash.
Sure the volume of people is much lower, but I think the “quality” of people is much higher. They truly appreciate nature and carry out whatever they bring in.
Like Monte, I’ve been thinking about doing a film called “Loving Nature to Death”.
All these people want to get out to enjoy nature but they treat nature as their personal dumping ground. It’s slowly becomming the very thing they are trying to et away from.
Thank you for taking the time to haul out other peoples trash. I usually carry a bag with me on my hikes and are out the junk most people leave behind while they were out enjoying nature.
Yes, there is definitely a direct relationship between accessibility and human impact. It is no wonder so many enjoy ‘true’ wilderness where most visual impacts of man are hidden.
I think the film project you mentioned would be a good one. The cynical side of me thinks the people that leave this trash don’t tend to watch such films though. 🙁 I wish that were different. But as a teaching aid for kids for example, maybe they can help point it out when they see grow ups around them doing the wrong thing.
Mark,
You’re probably right that the people who are trashing out nature probably won’t care anyway since they wouldn’t be doing it in the first place if they did.
A lot of the people I talk about this project to think its a good idea. Maybe it’s just a matter of someone having to open the door for everyone else then they would feel they’re not the only ones and hopefully step up and say or do something about it.
It’s sad as more and more land is being developed here that pressure on the few natural areas that we have left are being trashed out by people who have no respect for the land and nature.
I thought of doing a project called “You Dropped Something” that would be images of the trash I see on my walks around hotels. I became disgusted with it and haven’t done anything with for a while. I don’t like to see all of what we see our “throw away society” tossing out the window.
That became much of my attitude at the time of this one. I have to say I would rather celebrate the things about nature that make me feel good versus those that make me depressed. I don’t stick my head in the sand, but I don’t want it to overwhelm me either.
Pretty great photos considering they were taken on the iphone!
Thank you for doing what others should be doing.