Seattle Proper

Denny Park, Seattle 3-1-2013

Since my last post (three years? I've been doing this for three years?), I've kept my resolution. Except for days when I don't leave the house (or hotel as the case my be), there is always at least one piece of trash to collect. I try to carry a plastoc bag in my backpack or jacket pocket so that I can fill it up and deposit it in thenext trash receptacle.

Since then, I've also moved jobs a couple of times, and I'm now working in downtown Seattle rather than the suburbs of the east side. I walk 10 blocks from the bus or my parking spot to my office. On the way there are a multitude of routes to take, and always trash on the streets.

There are a couple of locations I targeted right away for pickup. For example, the stretch of Denny adjacent to Cornish College has a strip of bushes where a lot of trash was collecting. I started picking up trash there. This week, I walked through there and the area was immaculately groomed. Did somebody notice? Is this a manifestation of Broken Windows theory taking hold? Another location I started to police was on Fairview, and seemed to be a recently abandoned homeless nest. A montha fter I started picking up trash, somebody came through and cleaned up the whole place.

You can make an impact! One piece a day is all it takes :-)

-Nick