Sooo... we had a gorgeous warm, sunny weekend a few weeks ago Folks were out in the woods and parks in full force.
Actually, I didn't see them there... I just came across their remains. Well, not "their" remains... but the stuff that they left behind.
There's a rocky bluff up by the local lake and it's a popular hangout for the younger crowd in the warmer months, particularly on the weekends. Last summer, I made it a regular weekend stop because there always seemed to be remains...
On that sunny weekend, I decided to walk through the woods to the bluff on Sunday morning because it is a beautiful spot, overlooking the lake with the mountain in the background. I can get some gorgeous photographs there...
As I came to the top of the bluff, I had a sense of what I would find down by the shore. Off to the side of the trail, down the slope was a spilled bag of beer and cooler cans. I decided to pick them up on my way out...
And... sure enough... once I got closer to the water... scads of garbage - towels, chip bags, drink cups, pizza boxes and various miscellaneous crap. Clearly, the younger folk had a good time here Saturday evening. They just neglected to clean up after themselves.
There were a couple of early fishermen down by the water, and one of them called out that he had cleaned up a similar mess on Saturday morning. And yet, here was more. Sad. Disgusted.
I didn't have a large garbage bag in my pack, just a regular plastic bag. I debated my options. It was a good 15 minutes back to the truck... And there was a lot of stuff there...
In the end, I used one of the towels as a make-shift tote and gathered everything together. It was bulky, unwieldy and moderately heavy... damp towels aren't lightweight. But... I made it back to the trail head and shoved everything into the garbage can there.
I had several debates with myself during this process:
Tossing the Towels
Should I have taken the towels home, washed them and then donated them to the SPCA? That would seem to be the most eco-friendly thing to do and yet... we are living in the time of Covid and I didn't really want to bring this pile of damp towels back to our home. I took the route of least resistance and just dumped them... but I felt bad doing that.
Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus
Should I have just left the mess there for the "kids" to come back and clean up on their own? Am I just enabling this sort of mess-making by cleaning up after them? After all, it's not my mess... not my job to clean up after slovenly youth!
I decided "No"... if these kids were raised right by their parents... they'd already know that they should clean up after themselves. This isn't so much about the youth... it's about the parents...
Some people excuse this sort of behaviour by saying that it's hard to clean up after a party in the dark, particularly when the scoundrels are drunk as skunks. Perhaps... but the bigger question then is... if they are too drunk to clean up after themselves... who's driving everyone home? And who had the common sense to pack all the cans into a bag? Admittedly, a bag that got dropped down a slope and left for someone else to clean up...
Trash Begets Trash
But here's the thing... they've done studies on trash and litter. If it starts to accumulate somewhere... say along the side of the road or at a park, guess what? People apparently feel it's OK to toss their own litter and trash there. This is why graffiti gets painted over quickly... if it stays up, it tells other graffiti-ers that it's OK to add their own creations to that building or bridge. Cities have to stay on top of graffiti... and it's the same with trash. And there is no way cities can stay on top of the amount of trash that gets routinely tossed along roadways and trails... It's up to civic-minded citizens to step up... that's you and me folks...
If you go out into the woods or a city park or the beach... there are some rules of the trail that you might have heard of...
Pack it In, Pack It Out
There is a pretty well-known rule of the hiker crowd... if you pack it in, you pack it back out. This applies equally well to the folks walking in city parks and local woodlands. What it means is this...
If you bring a granola bar to eat on your walk... you pack out your granola bar wrapper. You don't just drop it on the trail. This is why seamstresses gave us pockets!
If you bring your cup of Timmies along for the walk... you carry that cup the whole length of your walk. You don't just toss it in the woods. Drink cups are lined with a thin film of plastic and that stuff never ever decays. Trust me... I've seen the various stages of disintegration of a Timmies cup... the plastic liner is still lying in the woods months after you tossed your Timmies cup there. Or Starbucks cup... or McDonald's cup.
If you scoop your dog's poop while on the trail, good for you!!! Excellent... but that's only the first step. You have now committed to carrying that poop bag the entire way back to your vehicle... or the nearest garbage can, whichever comes first... And no, a hollow stump is NOT a garbage can. I can't tell you how many poopy bags I've found in the woods, tossed off the trail by some half-assed "responsible" dog owner.
Leave No Trace
This is another well-known rule of the woods, particularly the back-packing crowd. It includes the "pack it in, pack it out" rule along with a few others. But here's the thing... it's not just about me or you leaving no trace... it's about taking it a step farther and leaving a negative trace.
Great that you tuck your granola bar wrapper into your backpack or pocket. But now... here's the question... what do you do when you see a granola bar wrapper on the trail? It's not your wrapper... not your monkeys... not your circus. What do you do?
Leave it for the owner to come back and clean up?? Come on... that ain't never gonna happen! Maybe they dropped it on purpose... maybe it fell out of their pocket by accident... Doesn't matter, they ain' coming back for it.
Leave it for the park patrol to clean up? There ain't no park patrol!
Actually there is... you are the park patrol. You saw the wrapper on the ground... now it's up to you to leave no trace. Just pretend it's your granola bar wrapper that fell out of your pocket accidentally on your last walk. Pick it up and put it in your pocket or pack or perhaps... the plastic bag that you could start carrying to collect trash along the trail...
Leave it Better than You Found It
Which leads me to the last rule of the trail... leave it better than you found it. Yes, you can be responsible for your own trash but... we are all citizens of a larger community, a larger world. We are all caretakers of the Earth... of our forests and trails and waterways. Someone said I could have just left the garbage for the "kids" to clean up. Maybe... but in that time, the wind might have blown some of it into the lake where it would drift around, perhaps harming fish or birds in the process. We all know that six-pack rings are NOT eco-friendly.
Sooo... even though these aren't my monkeys or my circus... I can see that I will need to be stocking my pockets and pack with plastic grocery bags. And if you see a person on the trail carrying a bag of garbage or cans... give them a smile and a thank you! And... consider carrying our own stash of bags...
Post-Script
Soooo... I did a pass through of the bluff on my Monday morning walk and found a good two dozen cans and bottles littering the rocks. Not much actual garbage though. I was prepared with a number of bags and came out of the woods with a half-bag of garbage and a bag and a half of cans...
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