Littering is literally out of hand

I bought a reacher/grabber tool from Home Depot today ($21 after tax) and took my dog for a walk along Rockdale Circle in the area between Skyland Drive and Rockdale Circle) I took a kitchen sized trash bag along, and within 10 minutes, I needed another bag. If you could see the sheer volume of the stuff, you would be shocked. The bag was so heavy, I had to hoist it over my shoulder to walk home with it.

What I found:

Many Styrofoam cups, lids, and straws
Cigarette butts
Fast food paper cups (Mostly Burger King, some McDonalds, 1 Starbucks)
1 tube of lip gloss
Bojangles chicken box
Paper and styrofoam plates
Clear plastic cake containers
Clear plastic 8 oz cups with lids
Many types of plastic bottles
Many types of aluminum cans

It looks like people just hurl their trash out the window as they take the curve. The aluminum can that irritated me was the one for an energy drink. If you drink an energy drink, wouldn't it give you enough energy to hang onto the can until you got to a trash can?

It was an interesting exercise - and that's what it was mainly - exercise. I need to exercise but it needs to have a purpose. I can't walk just to walk, if you know what I mean. So I'm not posting about this to get praised that I picked up trash. I needed to walk and walk the dog anyway.

But it was shocking how much I found, and I just scratched the surface of what's there. I finally had to tell myself that there would be more trash there for another day.

I do think that once there is trash in an area, then people don't feel bad about throwing their trash on top of it. It looks like "everyone does it." If we could all take a bag and a pik-stik with us as we walked, what would Snellville look like?

I'm going to get my 6-year-old son going with the grabber stick tomorrow. He'll enjoy picking out the cans and plastic bottles from the bag to put them into our recycling bin. What seems like work to adults can be really fun to a kid with a grabber.

(If you want to get a pick-up tool, you can find the Unger "Nifty Nabber' tool in the garden tool department by the rakes. It's really easy to pick up stuff without bending, and you don't have to touch it with your hands.)

You don't have to do this on a busy roadway either...you can do this in your own neighborhood. The surprised and pleased looks from the neighbors are pretty motivating.

Littering in Snellville

A MySnellvilleBlog reader is vexed by the littering in Snellville and has this to share with us:

Have you ever asked yourself why people litter? Personally, I blame it on their ignorance! Littering in the streets has got to be one of the laziest and stupidest things a driver or passenger can do…believe me I know. I littered once in college and was unfortunate (or fortunate) enough to get caught by a passing policeman. After paying the fine, I vowed to never throw trash out of my vehicle again.

So I asked myself as I was sitting at Wisteria & Highway 78 during lunch hour today…what possessed that man in front of me to throw his cigar wrapper out of his burgundy Buick sedan? After pondering, I came to the conclusion that the inside of his car must be immaculate and that there must not be any trash receptacles where his is traveling. So I placed my truck in park, walked around my car between the other parked cars, and picked the wrapper up for him. I of course, knocked on his window and politely told him that I would throw this away for him, and that he didn’t need to worry about it.

I would love to see the streets of this community, and everywhere for that matter, free of wrappers, beer cans, and fast food restaurant bags. How can we accomplish this?!? I would have loved to write the man in the burgundy Buick a citizen citation but I don’t think it would hold much merit, and besides, he would have probably just thrown it out the window anyway…any suggestions you or any of your readers have would be a great help. Thanks.

~Scott Henle

My reply:

Scott, I hear ya. I just wrote about Baby Jane's Buffet on www.SnellvilleEats.com , and what I didn't mention about it was that I found the information about the restaurant from the flyer - which I found as litter in my backyard. Along with 2 styrofoam plates and a wrapper from a ground beef package (none of it was my own trash.) I also observe a LOT of litter on Rockdale Circle right near Skyland. It's horrible. I have taken my children, with gloves and trash bags in hand, and scoured our whole neighborhood for trash.
It's probably time to do that again. We received odd looks from our neighbors. LOL!

Here's a page from Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful about why it's important to prevent littering and steps we can take as citizens.