Every Day Not Needed on the River Trail

May 19, 2014

I’ve been having trouble getting to doing all my favorite spots lately, what with starting my day walking Petey along the same stretch of riverfront, and doing extra spring work for gardening customers.  We’ve been finding so little trash along that walk that I decided to do it every other day or so and do White Rocks, Greenwood Dog Park or Schroeder Dog Park on the alternate days. 

Friday is my day of rest, and Petey and I both rest from gardening, long walks and litter cleaning on that day.  Like Sunday used to be, it is the one day that does not vary in that regard.  These Sundays, I do one of these litter walks, and then work on either my yard or my parents’ place, as customers don’t care for Sunday work.

Yesterday Sunday, I actually had to start the day making crackers, as the dough had been in the fridge for 32 hours; I was too tired the night before, after the Rogue River Cleanup (more on that later).  I didn’t get out to walk along the river with Petey until 9:00, and then found my car wouldn’t start.  Apparently I’d left the radio on.  So I called Dad for a jump and watered my potted plants while we waited. 

I drove down to the Harry and David parking lot, put up my sign, and decided to carry my litter grabber and small bucket, though I usually carry only bags when walking Petey.  I picked up the parking lot first, something I started because I don’t want to leave my truck in a dirty lot.  It doesn’t look good. 

But I still don’t like to wear the tunic while walking my dog.  A man asked me if I work for the city; I said that I work for the people of the city, and gave him a leaflet prize.

Do you see that glimpse of pink back there in the shadows? 

We went down to the river at two spots along the trail and found a small bucket full of trash along the river, mostly above the most recent high water in the blackberries, including several returnable cans.  Coming up from the second one and heading for the main trail, I saw color out of the corner of my eye about 50 feet away, along the edge of the mown area, behind a pine tree.  

We went to check it out, and found a pink piece of polyfoam about 18” x 36”, just big enough to lay the main part of one’s body on.  It had been run over with a lawn mower at least twice, getting about a quarter of it torn off and torn up the first time, because I found as I picked it up that a blackberry had grown over the torn portion and rooted; I had to break it to get it loose.  Nearby was a Wal-Mart bag torn and pushed into the blackberries.

I don’t blame the guy on the mower.  On a riding mower, one cannot see such things before hitting them, and he has a lot of mowing to do, and nowhere to put the litter.  He has every reason to expect that the city would send someone after him to pick up the trash he hits.  But the city apparently doesn’t assign anyone to litter pickup alone; it is part of other duties, and thus gets done mainly on the way to other places, along the paved trails.  Out-of-the-way spots don’t get cleaned except by unofficial volunteers.

Obviously, this trash wouldn’t fit in my little litter bucket; I had to go back to the truck for a litter bag that I’d just started the day before at the Rogue River Cleanup.  As I was walking back, I thought that maybe I should move it closer to the trash, and tried to start it.  It tried to turn over, but couldn’t do it.  I’d forgotten how short a drive it was to the park and hadn’t charged it sufficiently.  I decided to finish my walk and hope someone was around to help me start my truck when I got back, rather than have to call Dad again before I was done.

So we left the bucket in favor of the bag, and went back to get the trash.  The grabber made it far easier to pick up the torn pieces of foam.

We headed back to the truck and traded the bag for the bucket again, and headed out.  Forgot the bag with Petey’s balls and didn’t discover it for a hundred yards or so and went back and got it and headed out again.  Ran into a couple of ladies taking a rest on a bench.  Petey insisted on stopping with them and they invited me to set a spell and chat, which I did for a while, until we were all ready to move on. 

There was very little litter at the fishing block or the camping spot near it.  Frequent cleaning has been having a real effect, especially in the hiding spots.

The litter grabber came in handy at the dog park for picking up rocks and picking up and throwing balls; I am a lot more productive when I don’t have to bend over frequently.  I think I will keep taking the grabber.  Even without the tunic, it is easy to see that I am a litter cleaner when I carry a litter grabber.  I am only missing out on advertising my website away from the truck, except for those who get leaflets.

When Petey got two balls in his mouth and wouldn’t give one up, it was time to leave.  We hoofed it back to the truck as fast as we could go and still get the litter along the way.  As we approached the parking lot, there was another couple walking several dogs to their truck, and I asked if they could give me a jump, giving them a leaflet. 

It was quickly done, and I took Petey out of the truck for a walk around the Harry and David shelter, as the day before was Saturday, and I’d been picking up water balloons along the path.  Sure enough, there was a bunch around the shelter, along with other small litter.  Someone had picked up the big stuff and blown the little stuff into the grass, which saved me walking all over within the shelter.

A Monument to Trash

May 11^th, 2014--Mothers Day

I knew better, but I did it anyways.  To be exact, I didn’t do it.  The last time I went to White Rocks, on May Day, I didn’t remove the fire pit.

Sometimes, I do (or don’t do) something I should know better, just to remind myself why.  It usually isn’t on purpose.  In this case, I’d already topped off a yellow litter bag with a dead animal that was left in a black plastic bag near the monument Clyde Garnett, who died in 1937 while trying to save a child from drowning.  I was getting tired, having covered an area that I haven’t picked up on a regular basis, west of the entrance.  I started tearing apart the fire pit, saw the amount of charcoal I would have to deal with after the wood and rocks, and reflected that a fire pit might not be such a bad thing here.  It is a bit of a recreation spot.

A week later, a lady I met in Reinhart Park told me that White Rocks was a mess; she wished she’d had some trash bags.  I said that I go there about once a week; I’d check it out.  A few days later on Sunday, a day I used to go to White Rocks all the time before I started changing my schedule, I decided to go there.

I could see the pile as I was driving up and parking.  I decided to pick up along the road first, and then deal with it.  I had one yellow bag in my truck; I hoped it was enough. 

Fortunately, there was relatively litter along the road, even though I covered the whole stretch from the upper turnout to the lower one, past the monument.  As I walked down in, there was a lot of little litter around the parking lot and a pile of trash to the upper side, near an opening to the parking space above. 

But my first target was the monument to trash that had been built there.  Someone had piled their trash in the fire pit, piled more rocks on it, added some more, and added more rocks.

The photo doesn’t quite do it justice.  I started to tear it apart right away, throwing the rocks on top into the tall grass and picking up trash, and then remembered I needed a photo.  So I dumped the trash in my bag back into it, put a few rocks from the edge of the pile on top, and took pictures.  It had a little less trash and more rocks.

Then I started really tearing it apart.  It took a lot of throwing to get all the rocks out, and the trash filled up the bag most of the way.  Once I worked my way down to the charcoal and ashes, I got my rake, shovel, and bucket, cleaned it up, and dumped the ashes back in the weeds.

Then I put my tools back, took a bucket and litter grabber, and cleaned up the rest of the place, filling the bag the rest of the way.

At the downstream end as I sat and relaxed, I saw something I hadn’t noticed before: two pairs of Canada geese, accompanied by 10 large goslings, apparently raising their babies cooperatively. 

As they passed, I also saw another pair of geese with one very young gosling.  Apparently they lost a brood, laid more eggs, and only one survived. 

Something is eating young geese and causing cooperative parenting, or perhaps the cooperators were siblings.  I once had sibling cats that raised their kittens together.  Predation pressure can encourage cooperative parenting among birds.

Cleaning litter on my dog walk

I couldn’t do it.  I could not walk my dog and not pick up litter, once it is daylight and I can see it.  It is too painful not to pick it up; I started this as a hobby years ago, while walking my dog, for just this reason.  It’s a compulsion.  I can’t wait for my weekly litter walk around the neighborhood; it bothers me too much.

The doctor told me to double my aerobic walking time in the morning, so I started walking the whole river trail from the end of Spruce, doubling back at the west end, and walking back to my house on Greenwood, trying to ignore the trash along the neighborhood streets, and only pick up along the river trail where it was light.  But it was too long a walk, and it was too painful to walk the neighborhood and not pick up litter, which would take longer still.  At this point, I excepted parking lots in the park for the same reason: because it was too concentrated there and slows me down too much. 

The Harry and David Shelter

But the parking lot and the Harry and David Shelter at the west end of the trail bugged me.  After a few weeks of this, I had to start picking them up.  But doing a lot of stoop work around the shelter only ticks me off, when I’m without my litter grabber.  I don’t mind bending once in a while, but shelters and parking lots have way too much little litter after weekend parties. So I decided to start demonstrating the power of daily cleaning and adopt the shelter area and its parking lot.

I started driving my dog and my tools to the west end of the river walk trail in the Reinhart Volunteer Park, walking the whole trail to the dog park to throw balls, and walking Brownell and through the middle of the park on the way back to my truck, picking up litter along the way.  Walking the river trail every day and visiting riverfront destinations, litter doesn’t build up that much, and I can maintain an aerobic pace, with occasional squats for litter.  

A funny thing happened in the meantime.  My neighborhood became less littered than the river walk, and indeed, less littered than before.  After nine days between neighborhood litter walks, I was walking at a good pace and not seeing much to pick up last Sunday.  Even the problem properties didn’t have much litter.  It seems as though using my sign while working the neighborhood is making an impression. 

Litter wasn't bad, but this is bad at Spruce and Bridge.  Code forbids grass clippings on pavement.

Indeed, as I was picking up litter on a street I rarely clean up, but had 9 days before, the resident there said, “Ricky, we didn’t do that.  It blew in.” 

“It has been windy,” I replied.  “A copy of the latest?” I asked, as I handed him a leaflet that he was happy to accept.

 Rocks on Heather near Spruce, now cleaned up

That day, since things were going so well, I cleaned up a bunch of rocks along Heather, where three out of four yards on one stretch have 1 ½” rock along their frontages.  The rocks have been knocked into the street over the years: black crushed basalt on the corner; grey crushed granite on the next, and grey river rock on the last.  I hate rocks underfoot.  Until lately, I only kicked them down the road.  Now I clean them off the road.

Likewise, when I am at the dog park, I pick up rocks while throwing balls for Petey, gathering them in a litter bag and then dropping them in a dog-dug hole or at the base of a tree.  I twisted my ankle on a rock in a customer’s yard a few years ago; I have moved them ever since. 

It’s very rocky soil; they constantly wash out of the dirt, and will until the grass grows in thicker, which it won’t until it is mulched a bit.  Spreading compost last fall did wonders for the grass outside the fence this winter.  Too bad most of it is seasonal, but an inch or so of yard mulch (composted yard waste, fairly light and fluffy) from Southern Oregon Compost would do wonders for the evergreen perennial grass inside the fence.  Mulch can be a bit messy in a heavily used dog park, but I think we can deal with it through the winter.  The soil is clay silt; it needs organic matter lighten it and feed worms, which love clay.

While the neighborhood was cleaner than usual, it is almost summer, and the riverfront is now the focus of both residents and vagrants.  Two days ago, I cleaned up three bags of trash along the river, as well as a grocery bag full of returnables.  I had to stop leaving returnables in my big yellow litter bags because someone was dumping the bags in the trash cans I put them next to (as instructed) in order to find them.  So now I keep them separate and label the bags “Trash only – no returns.”  So far, so good.

While on my Sunday litter walk, I had an urge to visit the only river camping spot along the route, even though I’d been there the day before.  Sure enough, I found a camp being set up again, with afghans hung for privacy, and scattered litter. 

I’ve also been finding camps being set up in the Harry and David shelter area under the younger evergreens that have branches close to the ground.  People broke off incense cedar branches and hung them in the trees for screens in one place and stuck them in the ground in another.  Following a path broken by the mower I found a third place where big fir branches had been gathered and set up in a lean-to, and two furniture-moving blankets were in a pile nearby.

We all own public property like city parks, and they are there for all to use.  Claiming a personal piece of it by leaving one’s stuff there sullies the view and restricts others in their use of it.  But we are free to clean up the messes left by others.  I reclaim public property for me and you by doing just that.

Who litters our city?

Who drops their trash on the ground all over our town and county?  A lot of people like to blame vagrants, or tourists, or teenagers, or even spoiled rich kids.  Generally, it's something one is not.

As the Litter Cleaner, I believe that, generally, those who clean up litter do not drop it except by accident.  An observed exception is a habitual subconscious litterer who has been a janitor for only a few years of a long working life, who has a great ability to separate work and the rest of life and to ignore ugliness and disorder away from work. 

But your subconscious litterer starts out littering consciously as a child, sometimes out of laziness or revulsion, sometimes out of rebellion.  The Litter Cleaner once balled up her gum wrappers, and sometimes her gum in them, and discreetly dropped them, before she became totally offended by litter.  Someone else once saw himself as the anti-hero "Litterman," and threw his trash defiantly to the wind, before his youthful rebellion hardened into subconscious habit.

Disorderly vagrants appear to pick and guard their campsites with litter, leaving some and seeing if it gets picked up.  If it doesn’t, or if there is old trash, it’s a safe place to leave their stuff.  They keep leaving more until they leave, sometimes sleeping on it.  Broken glass is a warning to respectable, orderly people to stay away; they break bottles deliberately. 

Vagrant camp below the Wastewater Treatment Plant, 5 days old.

Orderly homeless folks leave no sign of their sleeping except, perhaps, a cleared space.  Both are generally gone before daylight reveals them to passing walkers; it is perfectly safe, though tedious, to clean up the camps of the disorderly.

But walking around residential neighborhoods, the Litter Cleaner sees that it is mostly residents who litter the streets of the City.  It must be residents, because I see much less litter by the river along the walking/biking trails used by both vagrants and exercise enthusiasts where I regularly clean up than in neighborhoods that get the same treatment.  

It has gotten to the point that I drive my dog to the park and walk him along the trails to avoid having to see the litter on the streets and yards between my weekly litter cleanup in my neighborhood.  It's too painful not to pick it up, but picking it up slows us down too much for aerobic exercise.  I tend to avoid parking lots and shelters within the park on my dog walk for the same reason, but since I have to use one parking lot, I've adopted the Harry and David shelter area and parking lot for 5-day-a week cleaning along with my walking route, as a demonstration of what almost daily cleaning can do.

Some properties are littered from the street to the door; most are clean or littered only on or near the street.  Some have free Country Weeklies mouldering in their driveways; if they do, there is other litter as well.  Some have beer cans right up by the sidewalk, behind their fence.  

Children who live in such houses are not taught to pick up their litter, so they drop it, following their parents’ example.  Some are explicitly taught that the world is theirs to mess up; they can go wherever they want, leave whatever they want, and it is supposed to be there when they return.

There are other children who are not taught to pick up litter; the children of the “filthy rich” who are picked up after by house cleaners and gardeners, whom an ex-house cleaner once said were the worst for filthy houses, while middle-class customers would clean before their cleaner. 

But the poor and middle class are not exempt, when their mothers clean up after them constantly, rather than doing the hard work of teaching them to clean up after themselves.  The youthful rebellion mentioned above may have been against just such a mother.  I often reflected, when growing up, that our mom worked harder getting us to do our chores than if she’d done them herself, but I knew why she did it.

Some children, I have learned, are explicitly taught to not pick up litter, because their parents are afraid of germs.  They may not drop it, but they've been taught to ignore it.

In the commercial zones, the most littered places tend to be bars, fast food, and convenience stores.  Some car repair shops are pretty bad, too.  Some, particularly fast food restaurants, do frequent lot pickup; others ignore it.  One can tell which by the old litter.  One suspects that the yards of the ignoring owners are littered as well, but maybe they separate their work and home in the opposite manner of our janitor.

But then there are Walmart, Walgreens, and other large corporations, who do only what local police or their corporation make them do.  In the absence of litter code enforcement, Walmart has a crew come in every two weeks to clean up the trash, when they need one employee dedicated to constant litter cleaning during store hours to actually obey our code and not let litter lie on their property and blow to the vacant lot across the street.

Walgreens, Williams Hwy, Grants Pass, at the front door

Walmart, Terry Lane, Grants Pass, bark long since evaporated or blown away.

Walmart, Newport Oregon.  It's a newer store with newer bark.

Let us not forget the vacant lot owners who might mow their lot against fire danger occasionally, but don’t pick up the litter on it.  Mowing just divides the litter and thereby multiplies it; it builds up either way. 

We have many vacant properties in this city, despite the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) and the restrictions on building outside it that boost the price of city property, because our city does not enforce its nuisance codes against weeds and litter.  The owners can just pay the low “unimproved” property taxes until someone pays them what they think their lot is worth.  If they had to eliminate the noxious and nuisance weeds and keep the litter picked up, they would lower their prices.

Seeing litter provokes littering.  The subconscious eye sees all, while the conscious sees only what it is trained to see by the subconscious.  Littered streets, parking lots, and vacant lots tell the subconscious that this is a place for trash, and people drop it.  The ugliness of weeds tells the under-mind to drop one’s ugly trash among the ugliness where it will be less noticeable. 

It takes a truly hardened litterer to drop trash on clean property.  Smokers top the list with their butts, and bring on the rest.  An ex-customer of mine, who now contributes to this cause, once told me that smokers are naturally careless people. 

Fishermen would be better thought of if they picked up litter before they fished an area, rather than leaving their bait cups, lines, and such, not to mention their butts, bottles and cans. 

But there would be little litter in this city if our police would enforce our litter nuisance code against property owners and residents.  If it were not allowed to lie on private or public property, it would be gone.  If parents were warned by police about their litter, most would make their children clean it up and warn them against dropping it.  By talking to those who tolerate litter, police would get acquainted with most of the people who commit other crimes, as a litterer does not love his neighbors and is apt to show it in other ways as well.

I lived in Snohomish County, Washington when the city of Everett decided to start enforcing their code against litter.  An unemployed friend immediately started making money, cleaning up business properties.  If our code was fully enforced, quite a few people could make money cleaning up this town and keeping it clean, and community corrections slaves could work on weeding our public properties.

This is one reason why I have applied for a city temp job, hoping to become the city’s permanent, dedicated litter cleaner.  The city has been making great strides in cleaning up its properties, but it needs a dedicated litter cleaner, not just people doing other jobs as well.  They need their other cleaners, to be sure, but also one who can see the tiny stuff and has the fire in her belly to pick up every litter bit.  Once its own properties are really clean, it can enforce its code against everyone else, and get us to clean up our city.