Hot Button: Litter

Trail in Maine--do you see any trash?

I know I haven't been posting much--most of my posts have been to the Facebook page because it is faster/easier when there is only something short. But I am on my soapbox today.

I just came back from a wonderful trip to Maine and Canada with my son and daughter-in-law. Other than the beautiful scenery and new birds, do you know what I noticed most? The lack of litter. The most litter was on the beaches where it washed up out of the ocean, but even there it looked like people either picked it up and took it home or piled the big stuff in one area for easy hauling.

One morning I was out walking with our hosts. We passed a beer can, and one of them picked it up. That was the only piece of trash I saw on that 4-mile walk. One of the other people walking is apparently part of a citizen's volunteer group that monitors the trails around the town and one of the things they do is pick up litter when they find it. Since there are a lot of tourists around, I am sure they have some. But people have pride in their community and pick up.

I am not saying there was no trash. I did see a little bit, but not near what I see in Wichita Falls daily. On the Rants and Raves Wichita Falls page on Facebook this morning a woman actually bragged about throwing trash on one of our streets because she was angry a restaurant got her order wrong. I went back to take a screenshot to make the woman famous on this blog, but she apparently pulled the post--someone did point out she broke the law, so I suppose she didn't want the bald admission there for the police to use as evidence.

I am not overly concerned with littering being against the law. It is disrepectful of our neighbors and makes our community look horrible. I have to do a litter pickup around my house at least once or twice a week--more often during high school football season. I am not picking up my trash--I am picking up after people with no consideration for others.

I often tell the story of when my son and I first arrived in Wichita Falls 20 years ago. We came in on Hwy 287. We no sooner got into the city limits when he said, "I don't think I'm going to like it here." That comment was based upon the trash all along the highway. It was a poor first impression.

We could do with a little respect and community pride. 

Living Green(er) in 2016

It's that time of year again. A new year is just around the corner. I have been thinking lately about my New Year's resolutions for 2016. Yes, I am one of those people who make New Year's resolutions, and generally, I tend to stick to them. Mostly because I frame them as goals, not aspirations.

Anyway, in thinking through 2015 and looking toward 2016, I decided that I needed to include one or two goals relating to living more sustainably. I have been doing that the last few years, so this is nothing new, but if I don't include it as one of my goals for the year, then I'll lose focus.

One event that has me really looking at this area a little more is the recent decision by Progressive Waste to stop single stream recycling in Wichita Falls. This means there really isn't a good place to recycle plastics. I have heard Wal-Mart will take most plastics. I am going to check that out and if so, that will be a help. However, wouldn't it be better to reduce at the front side? So my focus for 2016 is going to be to reduce trash. We do reasonably well at this already. We were putting out 1 curbside trash bin a month because we could put most of our waste either in our own compost bins, the city's organics recycling and the single stream recycling. The amount of waste we are putting out has jumped dramatically--mostly in plastics, although there are some metal food cans. I can see that if I don't take control, the amount of trash we put out will double. That's not acceptable. That means I need to look for non-plastic packaging options and ferret out recycling options. I am going to try to can more--I can now, but not enough to make a big dent in the metal cans going in the trash. I can reuse my canning jars.

So that is focus #1.

The next item is this blog. I post fairly regularly to the Facebook page, but have been woefully lazy about this blog. However, many people who have access to this blog do not have Facebook accounts. I can always share the link from the blog to Facebook, but it would be difficult for blog readers to check Facebook posts. I plan to still do a lot of sharing of interesting articles to the Facebook page, but will do a better job of having some more detailed information about topics of interest here.

Lastly, I plan to do more gardening. This is another carryover from previous years. I have a good-sized garden for a residential lot and I have been gradually introducing permaculture. I haven't been very disciplined about it though. So I am going to finish my permaculture course on line and raise a higher percentage of my own food this year. Good exercise, better tasting food and at the same time, removing more of the environmental toxins from our family.

So those are my 3 sustainability goals for 2016. What are yours?

Spring Cleaning: It Doesn't Look Like It Will Happen in Wichita Falls

Trash along a trail near Lake Wichita

I don't know if you have been out and about the city very much, but if you have, you can't help but notice the large amount of trash in all parts of town. I took the photo to the left with my cell phone just walking down a trail near Lake Wichita while I was walking. Although it isn't the best photo, as it was taken with my cell phone, it is easy to see there are several pieces of trash in a small area. This is hardly the worst of the trash around town.

I have people tell me all of the time that the litter situation can't be helped because of the wind. I agree the wind exacerbates the situation as any unsecured trash is going to blow around. However, if people took more care to create less trash and to better dispose of that trash they do create, our community would look much better.

Some years ago the Clean City Commission used to oversee a community-wide cleanup in early April. It was a pretty big deal. In a purge of commissions, the Clean City Commission got the ax. Justifiably so, as the cleanup was about the only worthwhile thing the commission did (obviously, this is my own somewhat jaded opinion.) The citywide cleanup was turned over to a small non-profit, Keep Wichita Falls Beautiful. This non-profit was held together by a very small group of volunteers. They did continue to sponsor the cleanup for a few years, but with dwindling volunteer resources, the amount of time and effort put into the cleanup declined. Keep Wichita Falls Beautiful has since gone belly up. I checked with the city and there is no plan to conduct a citywide cleanup this year.

The city did add some money to the budget this year for additional litter pickup along Kell Blvd, which seems to be the main thoroughfare where Wichitans unload their trash. However, Southwest Parkway is a dump and the access road along Kell also looks trashy. The open field at the intersection of Hwy 287 and Kell is an eyesore. And there are other areas just as bad--these are just ones I happen to pass often, so are especially irritating to me.

I know there are volunteer groups who periodically clean up some areas. I am involved with some of them. The Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalist chapter cleans up Plum Lake quarterly and Sikes Lake and the feeder drainage ditch annually. The Red River Sierra Club group does a regular pick up of a 2-mile stretch of Sisk Road as part of the Adopt-a-Highway program--there are many other organizations that are involved in this program as well.

It is obvious this is not enough. There is no way the city is going to pay for more litter pickup--they hue and cry from the addition of the monies for Kell Blvd makes it pretty clear that our citizenry is not interested in paying for this service. By the same token, I don't think any of us like to see our community looking unkempt, and it's an embarrassment when "company" comes. Our city has been doing a good job of selling Wichita Falls for conferences and events and we need to make a good impression.

So where am I going with this? We need some mechanism to create enthusiasm for a general cleanup. It would be nice if it was informal--in other words, people would just take personal responsibility to cleanup around their homes, businesses would clean up their areas and groups would each take an area and clean it up. But I know that's unlikely to work without a group of people organizing it.

What do you think? Is there a group of citizens who would roll up their sleeves in the next few weeks to get the ball rolling??? I'll bet the amount of work would be minimal if there was a dozen people to take it on. Mostly publicity and some coordination.

A Trashy Weekend

Some people posted on a local newstation Facebook page that they were ashamed at the litter around town for the  Hotter 'n Hell Hundred. Of course, most of their ire was directed at the City of Wichita Falls which had been putting out a yeoman's effort to ensure the city looked nice for the 15,000 riders. I wasn't very nice and offered to direct the complainers to a number of groups that pick up litter around town on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, no one contacted me.

Trash at Sikes Lake

June got a little muddy

 One such cleanup was the annual Sikes Lake cleanup that is the Saturday following Labor Day each year. The Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalist chapter joins up with Midwestern State University to do a lake cleanup. We have had as many as 200 volunteers show up. This year, there were probably about 25 - 30 people, which was enough.  Although the amount of trash in the truck may not seem like a lot, that's a big truck.

One of the hardest working volunteers was June, who ended up muddy, but keep up good humor throughout the project.

Trash near Lake Wichita

More trash in same area

There are still a lot of places that need a good cleanup. The next day I was birding out around Lake Wichita and came across this trashy area. I took the picture with my cell phone, so it isn't the best, but if you click on the photos you will get a better idea.

If everyone did their best to reduce the amount of trash they produce and to dispose of the trash they do responsibly, then we wouldn't have to be embarrasssed when we have company. We can all pick up around our houses and businesses. I have to do a litter patrol around our house at least once a week to pick up the trash people through out of their cars.

In addition to the annual Sikes Lake cleanup, the Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalist chapter cleans up Plum Lake quarterly. The Friends of Lake Arrowhead State Park host at least one park cleanup a year and there are several groups that do Adopt-a-Highway areas. The one I participate in is along Sisk Road with the Red River Sierra Club group. Annually the Keep Wichita Falls Beautiful hosts a city-wide cleanup in April.

There are lots of places that need a cleanup. Take a trash bag with you when you walk, get involved in one of the groups that does a cleanup, or organize a group yourself.

How Low Can You Go?

Although many locals complain about the lack of recycling opportunities in our area, for those who care, there are a lot of options, especially now that the Progressive Waste single stream recycling is here.  Even before that option became available, my husband and I could go 2 - 3 weeks without putting out a cart, due to the amount of compostable materials that could go in the City compost bin. However, now we can also drop off bottles and plastics in the single stream dumpsters around town, reducing the need to roll out our cart even more.

My daughter and family have been living with us for several months now. Although it sometimes seems these adults cannot get the hang of sorting their trash, we are still doing pretty well. They got used to the single stream where they used to live and are a little lazy. We're working on that.

We have a compost barrel set up for most garbage (not meat), the City compost cart that goes out weekly, and we drop off plastics, glass and metal at the single stream dumpsters when we are out and about. I also periodically drop off those annoying plastic shopping bags that still seem to show up in the house when someone besides me goes shopping. My husband hordes aluminum cans and turns them in when he has a pick-up load of crushed cans to finance some of his projects.

But some online posts got me thinking...how low can we go? The Utne Reader had a good article on zero-waste living that is worth a read by anyone. Even if you don't want to go as far as some of the folks mentioned in the article, it does point out some ways in which you can reduce a lot of waste, save money and live healthier. A win-win-win. Here are some tips from the Zero Waste Home blog. I'm not sure I am 100% ready for all of the ideas, but most of them wouldn't require a lot of effort.

There are several blogs on this topic out there. Two good ones are mentioned in the Utne Reader article. Another I particularly like that also has some great idea for businesses is Pick Up America. The link here is to The Zero-Waste Home toolkit.  Zero Waste in ACTION is targeted more toward business and industry. There are a couple of other related blogs worth mentioning. One I particularly enjoy is My Plastic-Free Life.

Who knew there would be so many people making such an effort to reduce their trash production? If only there were more. Even if you aren't ready to take on the zero-waste challenge completely, all of us can do better. Why not see how low you can go?

Trash Tirade

I'm on a trash tirade this morning. At the Park Board meeting this past week I was telling the other Park Board members that Lucy Park looked as bad as I have ever seen it just before Hotter 'n Hell weekend. There was trash everywhere.

I have been one of the proponents of increasing Lake Wichita shoreline access for fishing. But I was at Wild Bird Rescue Saturday and walked down to the shore on a break at the old boat launch where a father and son had just been fishing. The trash in that area (see photos above) makes me wonder about the wisdom of that work. I don't know that these two had anything to do with the mess on the shore, but the fishing line packages, fishing line and bait containers indicate some fisherman (or woman) left the mess there.

Littering is one of my "hot button" issues. It just really sets me off to see people leave a mess. Unfortunately, I don't often see people make a mess (which my husband says is a good thing as I have a tendency to say something about it), but obviously someone is leaving trash around. We should use a little peer pressure to encourage people to clean up after themselves. When we plan an event, trash pickup (and recycling) needs to be part of the planning process.

Littering is a crime. True, the fine isn't all that big, but money talks. When Park personnel have to be used to clean up trash, they can't mow or do other important maintenance work in our parks and along our trails. I would prefer to see the money that is now spent on trash pick up or graffitti clean up used to beautify more medians or spent on other needed improvements in our city, not cleaning up after people who have no respect for their neighbors.

So, what can we do?

• Clean up after ourselves. If we bring it in, we need to take it out.
• Clean up trash when we see it. I don't pick up all of the trash I see (I wouldn't get anywhere) but I try to pick up some trash and put it in the nearest trash container.
• Apply peer pressure when we see others litter.
• Participate in city cleanups.

Are you part of a group that would like to help keep Wichita Falls looking clean? The Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalists clean up Plum Lake once a quarter and Sikes Lake every September. Jack Murphy (Park and Recreation Director for City of Wichita Falls) said he would be willing to work with volunteer groups that would be responsible for certain areas on a regular basis.

The first time the Master Naturalists did Plum Lake, it was a major job, but we can usually clean up the shoreline in less than 2 hours now that we do it on a regular basis.

Correction on Numbers--Recycling Article

I sent yesterday's post to Dave Lehfeldt and he noted two errors, so I am posting the correction here.

Amount of trash per year: 170,000 tons
Amount of trash composted per year: 25,000 tons

Thanks to Dave for making sure we have the correct information.