Trash pick up can transform a community

In early May, McCook High School students spent an afternoon cleaning up downtown with Beautify McCook volunteers, learning how even small things like picking up trash can transform a community.

Ronda Graff/MCFF

At least once a week, I take my two dogs for a walk on the gravel roads near my house. Nothing unique or exciting about that unless you factor in my 14-pound dog thinking it can take down a passing motorist occasionally.

But every other month, I take along four or five plastic grocery bags and a pair of gloves on our walk for the purpose of picking up trash along the mile and one-half stretch of road we cover.

By the time I return home, the bags are bursting at the seams with plastic cups from local fast food restaurants, used containers of tobacco and most prevalent, empty beer cans.

While not a sexy subject, trash tells a lot about an area, about a community, about the people.

For example, I theorize that we have so many beer cans continuously on my road because my family lives just outside of town, and young people likely need to discard the “evidence” before returning home for the evening.

Having found myself in the cleanup business a lot lately, I’m learning a lot about the community through the trash.

Beautify McCook is a volunteer group that does small projects around the community, including the flowering planters downtown, the holiday lights on McCook’s skyline and the initiatives in Norris Park, such as additional electricity and cement pads.

Earlier this year, they added monthly cleanup dates to their list of projects, noting that making something beautiful can be as simple as picking up litter. So once a month, the Beautify McCook group, along with any volunteers who would like to join, descends upon downtown McCook to simply pick up trash. (Follow them on Facebook or watch for the date in the Gazette.)

Again, this project tells a lot about the community. There are a lot of leaves in the gutters despite not having a tremendous amount of trees along Norris Avenue, but the “tall” buildings must funnel leaves from the rest of town down the bricks. But that doesn’t dissuade us from wanting more trees and greenery in general downtown.

The downtown cleanup project tells us that you cannot have too many trash cans. While some people may find garbage cans unsightly, people will hopefully use them if they have so two or three on each block is not too many.

We have also learned that just because you have trashcans and multiple signs telling you to clean up after your dog, people will still not be respectful.

I’m actually conducting a test: Our group cleaned up the small grassy area in front of the Landmark Apartments that was literally covered in dog droppings, despite three signs, a trash can and baggies provided.

As someone who walks by that raised yard on a daily basis, I couldn’t tolerate the mess any longer. And while it wasn’t my dog or my mess, it was cleaned up during the May cleanup session. The test is whether the residents of the apartment complex - yes, I’m calling them out - maintain the area now that it has returned to a clean lawn. Time will tell.

But perhaps the most glaring observation during these monthly cleanups is the sheer amount of cigarette butts. Unfortunately, the butts do not decompose and they are the perfect size to get stuck in the crevasses of the beautiful downtown bricks. While the butts scatter around everywhere, they are most prevalent in front of the restaurants where people have dinner and then step outside for a smoke. That is their prerogative but both the smokers and the restaurants need to address the fact and consider a smoking station outside.

I actually turned the smoking issue into a positive recently. McCook High School students participated - willing or unwillingly - in an afternoon of volunteering. Our two dozen students descended upon the bricks and spent an hour digging cigarette butts from among the bricks. I told them this was our way of showing and telling them that smoking is a dirty habit - literally. There were a lot of “butt” jokes, and by the end, my group had such a distaste for the litter that I’m assuming smoking is not in their future.

Picking up trash is never going to be a glamorous subject, but it is one of the little things that make a difference in your community. It is something everyone can do, regardless of age or even physical ability.

As you are walking down the street and see a candy bar wrapper floating along, grab it. If you get out of your car and a plastic cup is wedged along a fence line, put it in the nearest receptacle. If you are going out for a walk, consider taking a plastic grocery bag along (and maybe a thin pair of gloves) so you can pick up garbage along your route

It may be easy to say it is someone else’s trash or someone else’s job, but if each of us just did one little thing each day, consider how we could transform our hometowns. Beautify McCook’s motto is to transform our community one project at a time, but in this case, we can transform our community one piece of litter at a time.