Week 29 – Just a drop in the bucket

Perhaps it’s the nearly eight months of tidying up others litter, or maybe it’s the incredibly trashy areas we attack with our tiny buckets. Regardless of the reason, I find myself frustrated tonight with the tiny dent we put in an especially gross part of Fife, WA near my workplace.

Lori and I literally filled our buckets in less than two minutes. We enjoyed a brief bit of sunshine and stretched our legs after a long drive today but didn’t leave with a sense of accomplishment. Without a doubt, we could have easily filled fifteen buckets each in an amazingly short amount of time.

Every piece of litter we pick up is a success but we need your help, won’t you please (even if it’s just once) fill a bucket or a bag in your neighborhood? I promise you that you can find an especially dirty spot and complete the task within five minutes.

If you choose to accept this mission, we thank you, the Earth thanks you, and passersby will thank you.

Oh yeah, Happy Belated Earth Day.

Ben

Week 28 – Can’t see the forest for the trees

I always wondered what “can’t see the forest for the trees” meant.  Was the water too murky, the path too hard to find?  Maybe it meant that if you didn’t pay attention you could lose yourself in the chaos and excitement…all wrong.

It means that you lose sight of the original focus and you may dwell on the sparkly foliage in front of you, or in our case the trash only at our feet.

Ben and I have worked on that same trashy hill three weeks now.  We keep hoping to make a difference in that spot.  It’s particularly precarious to pick-up there (love those alliterations) which doesn’t make it fun.  But we see no light at the end of the tunnel.  Massive trash was hidden just a few feet from where we started.  It took less than 5 minutes to fill our buckets. 

But what that saying really means is that it shouldn’t matter where we pick up and how many times it takes to see a little bit of difference.  The big picture remains the same…to clean up our world.

Week 27 – Bunny for Nothing and Chicks for Free

April Showers bring May flowers?  Maybe, but it also brought in two very soggy litter picker-uppers and that’s no yolk!

Ben and I hippity-hopped a five minute pick up to a dirty hill in West Seattle while there was a slight lull in the rain. Our Easter buckets filled with more plastic than an Easter basket.

But you didn’t hear a peep out of us…we were hoppy  to oblige.  Happy Easter everyone!

Week 26 – Spring in our step!

For some reason this winter felt especially long. Maybe it was the abundance of snow this year, maybe it was the large heating bills, or maybe it was just the normal gray that all Seattlites get to know like a cranky relative.  Whatever it may be…60+ degrees and a sun-filled day made everyone’s smile just a tiny bit brighter.

Ben and I opted to fill our buckets at Lincoln Park in West Seattle where we could get the best of both worlds: sun, sand, lush greenery and an abundance of free parking.    

Babies in strollers, dogs on leashes and smiling people saying “thank you” littered our stroll.  Rubbish was hard to find but it didn’t matter since there was a definite spring in our step.  Ben even hopped the fence to get that empty bag of chips that was slightly out of reach.  

One leisurely stroll and two buckets later we headed home. “Not all  those who wander are lost.”  J.R.R. Tolkien.