I Did Roadside Clean-up (on purpose) and This is What I Found…

Last month was my first time ever doing volunteer litter clean-up alongside of a state highway with a local activist group.

There’s a video you first have to watch for training, then you sign a paper that you agree to Department of Transportation rules of safety, and finally you meet up with the group and are given bags and a touch-less trash pickup tool.

The group of more than a dozen of us did various sections of the 2-mile stretch, which is technically double the size when you cover the other side of the highway. Clean up is not just the edge of the road, but down the sides of the slopes toward the private property fence line.

The sky was clear, the temperature was cool, and it wasn’t too windy.

One of the first things you notice is how vulnerable you feel. Everyone driving by will notice you. You think that maybe they’ll think you’re trustees from the county jail doing community service. Maybe they’ll think you’re tree-huggers. But once the thought crosses your mind, you forget all about the cars.

I was in a group of four: one driver, two older ladies, and myself. Being a little younger, I took care of the hillside, but it’s not easy. The incline is between 10 and 45 percent. Our group was about a forth of the totally volunteers, so doing a full mile or so, up and down on an angle. Not easy, so I got my steps and my workout in for the day.

The task lasted under two hours, but you learn a lot by picking up after others. I’ve worked in restaurants, coffeehouses, gas stations, and offices. When people know you’ve seen their face, they don’t usually show you all of themselves.

On the side of a road, people think their trash disappears. No, someone picks that up. They see it. And yes, we have thoughts.

In the training video, you hear about the possibility of seeing all sorts of discarded items, including portable meth labs and guns. You hope you don’t come across anything spectacular, but you never know.

I did not see any drugs. I didn’t come across a tossed weapon (for which you’d have to call the authorities to deal with). I didn’t even see a used condom.

But I did pick up a discarded condom still in the packaging. That makes one think. Why would someone toss that? Sometimes having one on hand can be helpful. Was it expired? I didn’t look.

There was a lot of fast food litter. Maybe about half the volume is fast food litter, if you don’t count a couple of car and truck parts in the bags. This makes sense since many of us eat while traveling. It’s easy, it’s quick, and smells up the car in no time.

So, this goes out the window, half the time not even crushed or flattened. Just a big ball of brown paper with empty burger and fry cartons. If the job wasn’t as filthy as it is, I was almost tempted to see how many came from the same McDonald’s or KFC. Litigation and lawsuits came to mind momentarily.

For some reason it never crossed my mind, but I came across two large bottles of apple juice. Or maybe it was urine. Either way, the bottle was scuffed and I was glad I had gloves, since it was too heavy for the trash-claws thing. “Did you pour it out?” I was asked when I brought it up. No, I’ll deal with the liter or two of unnecessary weight in my garbage bag, because I’m not going to unscrew the lid from where an unwashed stranger repeatedly put his penis. So, yes, I tried to convince myself: apple juice.

We saw literal poop. It was against a bridge column. With a used travel tissue. I made an executive decision to not pick this up, even though I tried to pick up every Pepsi cap and cigarette butt I saw. Nature will just have to adapt to this.

Some other things I picked up: many chip bags, a sock, a hat (with the price tag still on it), and scratch-off tickets. No, I didn’t look to see if they were winners. There was a Lunchables container. That must have been a nice thing for the child to see, that Lunchables packaging going out the window, a good mother leading by example for our future generation.

There were many liquor containers. Mostly cheap beer cans and bottles. College beer, fishing at the lake beer, poverty beer. You start to wonder if people who drink craft lagers are not the type to litter highways.

Maybe littering is a class habit? I hate the idea that I was stereotyping the type of person that would throw garbage into nature or onto someone else’s property, but you start seeing patterns. You start imaging the life of that item: who bought it, who used it, who made a conscious decision to roll down the window and throw it into the wind.

Most exit ramps lead to a gas station or a restaurant, where all of these have trash containers outside. There is a rest stop area on major highways every hour or so. All of these have trash cans. Please use them.

I know that litter stinks. No one wants to smell food containers when they’re no longer hungry. That wide-mouth bottle of urine rolling around on the floor is annoying and can be a potential problem if it leaks. The diaper stinks. I get it. But please remember that if you toss it out the window, it doesn’t disappear. Someone has to deal with it.

And they’re most likely doing it for free. And they will have thoughts.