Monday, August 18, 2008

Lifted litter on display

Do you ever stop by the display windows at the back of our downtown library to see what curiosities they are showing this week? If not, you should. All sorts of strange things make an appearance. Here's a good example: what weird items do those admirable volunteers pick up beside the roads and highways, aside from bales and bales of supeermarket plastic bags and fast food leavings? Answer in these pictures. Everything from old shoes (singles and in pairs) to toy bones for Rover...

...from dishes and balls to rubber duckies. Not to mention eyeglasses and shades or straw hats, license plates, and dead real estate signs. I think that padded pink heart up above is a particularly poignant specimen from our throw-away culture.

All together, now, let's give a great big cheer to the Litter Lifters who are doing such a splendid job picking up after our country's slobs!

Some Stats & Further Info: So you want to help clean up the highways and byways? Check in with ADOT (or your own state highway agency elsewhere). The agency supplied the Top 10 trash list for the number-minded: fast food detritus, 32.7%; cigarette filters, 23.3%; store bags, 6.8%; plastic bottles, 5.1%; beverage cans, 4.8%; cardboard, 4.0%; glass bottles, 3.5%; cigarette wrappers, 3.0%; tire parts, 2.8%, and bottle caps, 1.8%. While I find the store bags category figure hard to believe, it may be that the percentages are based on number of items, rather than square footage or vision-blockage. One each cigarette filter or bottle cap destroys a lot less landscape than one supermarket plastic bag! BTW, one of my "solutions" to the eyesore problem is to pass a law mandating that to-go packaging be the color of kraft paper, like plain cardboard boxes. A lot less visible against the similarly colored earth than gleaming white, with or without bright red printing.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

A nobel thing they are doing. It would be better if folks didn't toss things out of the car window.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Good work the litter team and very interestign idea to have an exhibition like that, but wouldn't it be a nicer world if they weren't needed and everyone disposed their waste carefully?

smilnsigh said...

And a cheer for the library, which displays what they 'lift.' And thus, maybe gets some more people to join the 'Lifters.'

Miss Mari-Nanci
Smilnsigh
Photos-City-Mine
When Twilight Embraces

David Kirk said...

Granny: Remember the chainsaw rooster whose picture I posted a long time ago on my blog? I'm sorry to tell you that some fool torched it!

Granny J said...

steve -- if wishes were fishes & all that...

crafty -- what I find particularly admirable about the LLs is that they go about their volunteer business with neither praise nor shouts of "what a good boy/girl am I."

SnS -- I checked to find out just how to become a Litter Lifter & am posting it, along with data on types & % amounts of litter.

froggy -- Bummer! However, I will have yet more pix of chain saw art from Alaska when I get the CD or chip or flash drive of my huge collection of Alaska photos from the dotter.

Anonymous said...

Granny J, you're "talkin' trash" now!

Great post on some wonderful volunteers!

~Anon in AV.

Granny J said...

anon av -- I have to admit that I've scored some great shots of litter in the past couple of years... but I do appreciate roadways that are reasonably clean of the stuff of civilization.

Lucy said...

There is something poignant and a bit poetic about that collection.

It's a good job jobbed, though.

Granny J said...

lucy -- often, I find that there are sad little stories implied by discarded stuff I find on my walks.

 
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