Bethesda Green’s first recycling bin!!!

One of the projects that Bethesda Green has taken the initiative with is the presence of recycling bins throughout the downtown business and social areas… on May 21st the very first downtown bin was unveiled at the intersection of Bethesda and Woodmont Avenues.

Many more are to follow… finally about 25 will be in place. The bins will be emptied and maintained by Bethesda Urban Partnership. This is very cool! Check out my little video I slapped together and then check out the website! Then, get involved!

saved the trees!

So, I took a break from picking up litter this weekend to rescue some trees. I’ve rescued dogs and a cat from various centers, but never rescued a plant before. My neighbor has built himself a new house, and planned to trash a row of sweet little trees that stood between our two homes… until another neighbor double-dog dared me to move them. How did she do that? She simply told me it could be done… that’s a double-dog dare to a guy.

I’ve never moved a tree before this weekend. But after a few hours yesterday evening and about six today… around twenty little trees have a new home in various places around my yard. Some will still offer a screen between our two houses and others line our front fence. Once we get a bird bath in with a couple of feeders, this will definitely be a choice picnic yard.

My wife and I have joked about it, but we like to eat outside. I think we’re the only folks in our neighborhood who will eat dinner in their front yard. (Enter background banjo music.) I promise we always leave the squirrels alone! But ya know, maybe if we all ate in our front yards every now and again we’d all be a little more attuned to ebb and tide of litter washing up and down our streets? Who knows, maw.

For now, the little trees are as yet unhugged, but out of harm’s way. If they survive the transplant ya’ll have to come over for a cookout, soon… in the front yard.

An Earth Day bag o’trash…

Well, here’s the bag collected on the morning of Earth Day… a nice tidy bit of bottles, food wrappers and assorted junk from the side of Wilson Lane, the grounds of Bethesda Elementary and the lawn of Church in Bethesda.

Of course, every day can be Earth Day! Be a good neighbor! Pick up some litter!

Earth Day ‘08

So, here’s my idea of fun. I made this little flyer and will post it around town… if you jump in and pick up some litter to celebrate Earth Day, then “Good for you and good for us all!“

If you’d like, come back here and let us know how it went.

April 2008 Service Day!

Good news!

We have a great event on the horizon for April. I just heard this morning at a committee meeting at the Chamber of Commerce that we have a Community Service Day planned for Saturday, April 26th. We’ll be picking up litter along the Crescent Trail and planting flowers at major trail/street intersections.

As more details come together I’ll post them here. Want to be a part? Let me know if you want to help that day and we’ll get you connected to the right people! Are you a business owner or a decision maker at your place of employment? Consider being a member of the Chamber, it’s a great way to plug into the community on many levels!

Getting Started…

So, we want to make a difference. Here’s what I suggest each person begin by doing: 1) stop littering, and 2) start picking up other people’s litter.

The first one is really easy, folks. We just stop it. We stop dropping wrappers and tossing stuff from our cars. We stop throwing cigarette butts on the sidewalk and we stop setting down our paper coffee cups and sneaking away when no one’s looking. This is the easy one for you because the trash is undoubtedly yours. All you have to do is own it, own it right up to the nearest trash can.

Here are some tips that can help with managing your daily trash and even eliminate some of it:

• Go get a really cool insulated coffee mug with a leak-proof lid and stop using the paper coffee cups! I like to shop the clearance cups at Starbucks and Caribou. I’m not perfect, and I do sometimes forget my reusable cup, but each paper cup not needed because we’re using a reusable cup is a little victory in the war against litter!
• Be sure to carry trash bags in your car. Come on, we all have a gazillion of those bags from Safeway and ten of then will cram under your front seat easily. Always having a bag close at hand will help the “Well, what else can I do with it?” conundrum that trips up so many good people.
• For you folks ready for the next level… plan your litter! Think ahead when you plan a walk, plan a trip, or pack a lunch. Pick items that create less litter, or litter that is more easily managed. Chocolate candy bars can make very unmanageable litter, all gooey and messy. A snack size ziplock of baby carrots is better for you and the ziplock can go right back in your pocket. Those infamous juice boxes that your kids love produce a straw wrapper that always gets dropped, a straw and a box… three pieces of potential litter! Buy your kids cool reusable Nalgene bottles and save money by buying the larger bottles of juice… it might cost you three minutes when you have to fill the bottles, but if you have three kids like me, that’s nine potential pieces of litter eliminated from the picture!

The second starting place is a little more difficult: own the other dope’s trash. In this instance the trash is undoubtedly not yours, but you choose to own it anyway. Yes, it’s completely not fair that you have to clean up after some dimwit who littered, but that’s a major part of our winning the war on litter. Not everyone will want to own their own trash, and that just increases the burden on everyone else.

So, here’s some tips on getting started with this phase of your involvement:

• Start with a shorter-range litter radar. Just decide to own the litter on a block of your own street. Maybe you can own the litter on the path you walk to take the kids to school in the morning. Adopt one small local park. Maybe your apartment building has bushes out front that you and the kids can clean litter out of on Saturdays.
• Bus your own table next time you go out to eat. Really. Clean up your table at McDonalds and leave it better than you found it. Wipe up the ketchup spill. Stack your own dishes and gather the wrappers you’ve used. Teach your kids that the world doesn’t have to pay people to clean up after them. And if someone leaves a messy table near you (and they will), then clean it up. Always, when picking up your trash, try to grab one piece of someone else’s trash. (They’ve usually left if under the seat because it’s so hard to bend over and pick it up.)
• Pick up that annoying trash where you work. When that jerk (you know his/her name) throws trash at the can again, and misses again, and walks off laughing again, you go pick it up and make the assist.
• On your lunch/smoke break you can pick up the litter that’s gathered in the shrubs and landscaping outside.
• And for you warriors out there, go get a litter grabber! I bought mine at Strosniders! It’s a three footer, metallic green and nabs a wrapper like a champ! I carry it in one hand with a paper or plastic grocery bag in the other.

However you feel the need to move or choose to get in the saddle, the point is that you get going. And I’d love your ideas and best practices in the war on litter…