The Last 4 Days

Hello, everyone!  This project has been slower starting than I thought.  I was hoping to get out early Saturday morning before the kids & husband got up and go some place that I knew really needed cleaning up and put a great big dent into my goal.  But sleep, the temptress she is, kept me in bed late.  In fact, my son and husband woke me up with a conversation that they were having downstairs.  Oh well, I'm going to shoot for going out early this Saturday morning.  There are a couple of roadsides that are pretty nasty around here - where I wouldn't want to go with kids in tow.  So an early Saturday morning would be perfect for those types of locations.

I did do some trash collection over the past few days - 209 pieces to be exact.  My husband and I had a bunch of personal business to take care of over this past weekend that took up a bunch of time, so I just wasn't able to do much.  My goal for days where I'm not trying to do a serious cleanup is to pick up 100 pieces.  The thought with that is if I averaged picking up 100 pieces a day, I would complete this project in about 3 years.  II would obviously like to finish sooner, but if I can't, 100 pieces a day is reasonable for me to do, given that I have 2 kids and dinner to cook.  :)

Today I was able to pick up over 100 pieces of trash.  If you go to any public area - parks, schools, libraries, shopping centers, sports fields, etc. - it will probably take you 10 minutes to pick up 100 pieces of trash.  And the pieces range in size - most are small, but every once in a while, you find a shoe or coat or water bottle.  Of the over 400 pieces I've collected so far, very few of those pieces have been recyclable items. 

The trash typically falls into 2 categories: wrappers from convenience foods and cigarette butts.  I can't tell you how sick I am of seeing cigarette butts.  While I image many of the wrappers get left behind by busy moms trying to feed their kids on the go while fitting in time at the park, there is no way the cigarette butts accidentally fell on the ground.  Someone dropped them there on purpose.  It is an unhealthy habit that is wreaking havoc on our world in more ways than one.

Well, I'm hoping to pick up the pace tomorrow & pick up a couple hundred pieces while out doing my weekly shopping with my son.  Target's parking lot is always a mess, so it will unfortunately be easy to get a couple of hundred pieces there without much work. :(

Take Care,
Kara