A Rogue's Gallery: One Pic A Day (Photo Essay)

To round out 2013, I snapped a picture of one piece of litter that I picked up and threw away each day in December.  

Presented for your edification and delight, here is my "litter-ary" calendar:

1  Gasworks park Just after lunch.  Coffee cup.	2 Houghton park and ride 8:45 AM.  Plastic bag w/ crushed cans.
3  Thomas Street 9 AM. V8 Fusion bottle.	4  Denny Park 9 AM. Waxy paper bag.
5 Yale Avenue 9 AM 40 oz Bud bottle	6   University District 8:30 AM Party cups
7 Kirkland 9 AM Coffee Cup	8 International District 3:30 PM Plastic bag
9 Houghton Park n Ride 8:30 AM Coors beer can	10 Stewart St. U-Park 8:30 AM Newspaper
11 Olive St. Bus station 5:30 PM Stranger insert	12 Finn Hill. 5:45 PM  Adopt-a-stop duty.
13 Supermarket parking lot 10:15 AM Lighter	14 Houghton 10:30 AM Cigarette butts
15 Burke Gilman Trail 9:00 AM Hubcap	16 Houghton Park n Ride 8:10 AM Ready-bagged recycling
17 Totem lake freeway station 8:30 AM Camel cigarette pack	18 South Kirkland Park and ride 10:30 AM New years eve flyer
19 Houghton park and ride 8:15 AM Throw blanket	20 Finn Hill 2:00 PM Wine box
21 Finn Hill 1:00 PM Fruit cup	22 Alderwood Mall 4:30 PM Promotional sign
23 Yale Ave. 9 AM Water bottle	24 Downtown Kirkland 2:00 PM Tinsel
25 Finn Hill 2:00 PM McDonald’s bag	26 Burke Gilman trail 2:00 PM Bar coasters
27 Bridle Trails 1:30 PM Styrofoam to-go container	28 Woodland Park Zoo 3:00 PM Ziploc bag
29 Redmond Town Center 6:30 PM Receipt	30 Kingsgate 3:00 PM Snyder’s Pretzel bag
31 Houghton park and ride 8:30 AM Soda cup	Happy New Year From OnePieceADay!

Neptune’s plastic patch – news from the vortex

Photo by myecoaction.com

I’ve mentioned my predilection for open water swimming.  I grew up in West Los Angeles, and in the permissive 1970s, with far more autonomy than kids today are afforded, my best friend Frankie and I would frequently take the #3 bus from his home on Montana Ave. down to the beach during the summer.  We spent hours in the surf, boogie boarding and body surfing.  Later on, Frankie became proficient on a surfboard, while I excelled as a freestyle skateboarder (my proudest moment was taking 5^th place in the annual Bay street freestyle competition in 1978).  Frankie went on to become a professional diver, and while my professional career has never directly involved the ocean, my jobs over the last 15 years have kept me close to some of the eminently swimmable bodies of water in the Puget Sound region – notably Lake Washington, Lake Sammamish, and Lake Union. 

Since I have a bee in my bonnet about garbage, and a fondness for the feeling of cool water and goose poop sliding over my skin, the thought of garbage in the water chaps, as they say, my speedo-covered ass.

I’ve rescued floating debris from a watery grave, as reported in this very blog.  I’ve braved muddy banks to retrieve things as large as a 5 gallon bucket and as small as a cigarette butt.  I’ve waded into the frigid waters of Puget sound for Styrofoam and other pollutants.  Yes, I’m mildly obsessed – thanks for your concern.

Imagine my surprise to find out recently about a global ecological calamity involving garbage in the ocean.  It’s new to me, and I suspect, new to you as well.  I’m talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, aka the Pacific Trash Vortex.

The patch was originally theorized by NOAA in 1988, and discovered 9 years later by oceanographer Charles Moore (here’s his TED talk on the topic).  The patch is created by ocean currents which funnel flotsam into the North Pacific Gyre, whence it cannot escape.  The materials, largely plastics, degrade here midocean, and enter the food chain.  Toxins introduced this way can cause sickness or death in marine animals, disrupt normal hormone patterns, and eventually find their way into seafood and back into our lives. 

How can we help?  Well, one way may be to participate in International Coastal Cleanup Day, sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy – it occurred on September 21 this year.  Or, you may choose to support companies such as Electrolux or Method, which are committing to creating products made from plastic collected from  the vortex.

Better yet, if you live on or near the coast, make a point to swing by the beach to rescue one or more pieces of floating debris from in or near the water.  Every piece you keep out of an ocean, lake, or stream minimizes the opportunity for that bottle or bag to become toxic sludge in your next order of sushi.  Think about it, and act – one piece a day is a small price to pay to preserve clean water and healthy food for posterity.

Big Bellies for Trash!

The Greater Seattle Metropolitan area is going “belly up” for green technology.  Big Belly Solar is a Massachusetts company that is using technology in an innovative way to solve some of the most pervasive issues around municipal litter collection.  Their unique solar-powered compactor system attacks the litter problem on several fronts:

• The fully enclosed design prevents weather or pests from scattering trash from bins
• The compacting system allows their collectors to hold a greater volume of trash and therefore require less frequent collection.
•  The units are internet-connected, and will notify their handlers electronically when they need collection

The results sound promising.  The University of Washington piloted Big Belly compactors beginning in 2011, and have realized savings as a result.   Similar programs have been started in my town of Kirkland, as well as in the City of Seattle.  It makes sense that this high tech hub would embrace this innovative combination of well-tested technologies, and by all indications the investment is paying off.  I happily deposit my daily picks in Big Belly compactors such as this one near the bus stop at Yale and Stewart.

Of course, I have my own challenges around a big belly.  Before leaving my Eastside job to work in Seattle I was rock climbing two days or more a week.  Before that I spent a couple of years studying capoeira through the excellent program at Capoeira Malês.  And prior to that, I was spending mornings before work at Crossroads Skate Park in Bellevue.

My morning workout, circa 2006 (Photo by Huck Productions)

All that ended when I started working in Seattle and traded my exercise time for 2 hours a day of commuting.  The warm season sees me swimming (and picking up marine litter).  The rest of the year, I take as much time as I can to walk.  Walking takes me to the streets, and gives me ample opportunity to dispose of one or more pieces of litter a day.  I guess you could say collecting litter helps me control my big belly, much like the way Big Belly is helping Seattle deal with litter.  

What comes around, goes around.  Make sure what goes on the ground winds up in the garbage!

What are the kids drinking these days?

One thing I notice in my avocation as self-appointed litter police is the occasional “nest” that teens and young adults create in their quest to flout alcohol age restrictions.  Sometimes these are in the bushes, sometimes in an abandoned lot, or by the side of the road.  Sometimes they are represented by collections in the garbage can at my adopt-a-stop.

I recognize these signs, because I was a teenage drinker.  At 17 or 18, my bandmates and I would drive to a local convenience or liquor store, and park outside waiting for a cool-looking adult who might buy us some beer.  We referred to it as “spotting”, as in “hey, ya wanna go spot some beer?.”  It wasn’t hard to find somebody willing. 

Once, when it was Jim’s turn to hang out and solicit potential enablers, he got a yes from a pretty twentysomething girl, who not only bought us the beer, but rewarded Jim with a long deep wet kiss for his trouble.  It’s 32 years later and I’m still jealous.

But I digress.

A few things to note about the nests this year:

1. It’s all about the Steel Reserve.  Whether it’s my neighborhood on the Eastside or where I work in the SLU, those shiny silver cans are congregated together. No other brand seems to satisfy the thirsty teen in 2013.
2. When they aren’t leaving cans in neat piles, they are walking down the street, leaving a trail of cans, about two to the block.
3. Nobody seems to want to dent the smooth silvery exterior of the cans.  The picture above is typical.  Even crammed by the six pack into the adopt-a-stop bin, the cans are miraculously unmarred.
4. They are a breeze to pick up.  Except for the shambling trail-leavers, these nests are clean, consolidated, and recyclable.

Carry on, one-piecers, and keep your eyes out for signs of nests in your neighborhood.  They are a simple way to grab some quick karma points.

 

Go Skateboarding! A Summer Flashback

I started skateboarding sometime in 1975.  I imagine it was summer at the time.  It was Los Angeles, and Frank Nasworthy had just unleashed the urethane skateboard wheel onto an unsuspecting planet full of teenagers with limitless imagination and blanketed with a palette of limitless pavement upon which to ideate.

38 years later, I still whip my board out while waiting for the bus, in that moment of calm and stillness and, dare I say, boredom, when I am at the mercy of the transit schedule and no other deadline is bearing down upon me.  I skate the way I did in my youth – slopestyle  (yes that’s me), curb tricks, handstands…
Here’s me on Go Skateboarding Day this past summer.

Cruising around the park ‘n ride gives me ample opportunity to police litter.  Pick up a bottle or a rag or a bag or a butt, skate it over to the receptacle, repeat.

Recently I found two pair of jeans and a towel discarded in the lot. I left it for a week to make sure that nobody was coming back for it.  They’re now washed and ready to donate to charity.

A week or two ago, I read the sign laying out the rules for park ‘n ride users.  The “no skateboarding” rule was no surprise to me – skateboarders are used to being outlaws, despite the hard work of advocacy organizations such as Skaters for Public Skateparks to legalize skateboarding in public places (maybe it won’t surprise you to hear that I was a longtime member of SPS not to mention my involvement in local Seattle projects such as the Puget Sound Skateboard Association, and Marginal Way.)

One hallmark of skateboarders is that they appreciate having great places to skate.  The skateboarding community has garnered a lot of appreciation from the nonskating community because of their tendency to police litter at skateparks.  Those of us who are members of the “Old Man Army” habitually travel with brooms and dustpans to clean out the bottom of skate bowls.  I like to take a tour around the park either on arrival or before I leave, to ensure the park is trash free.

When skateboarders first started to build Portland’s  Burnside skatepark as a renegade project in the early 1990s, that area of Portland was high-crime and riddled with drugs and prostitution.  The skaters not only cleaned up the site, they cleaned u the neighborhood.  They brought in a new community, just as badass, but dedicated to good healthy fun.  To this day, the city remembers the great things the Burnside crew did for the Portland community.

Being a part of a community that values making the world a better place makes me feel good.  Reading the park ‘n ride sign, I got to musing – if I split my time at the facility between skateboarding and removing litter, do they cancel each other out?

Deep thoughts, readers… deep thoughts.

Skate on, and pick up trash.

When Nature is a Litterbug

It’s fall in South Lake Union, and the many deciduous trees in our neighborhood are doing the thing that deciduous trees do in the fall – littering! 

Don’t get me wrong – I love the look of sidewalks and streets covered in the kraft-paper look of fall leaves.  But eventually they get pulverized, they rot, and they become a wet soggy mess.  Seattle has been blessed (or cursed – I haven’t decided) with a dry fall, so the leaves are a delight.  However, I’ve noticed that City workers, local businesses, and residents have been expending great amounts of energy to remove the drifts of leaves collecting in their driveways and along planted areas.  

It never occurred to me to pick up “One Leaf A Day” – I draw the line there, folks – nature was here first, whether we planted the trees or not.  And I do not object to a leaf the way I object to the similar look of a discarded paper bag.  I don’t feel that tug of responsibility that draws me to remove human detritus from my surroundings.  Walking down the street shuffling my feet through the piles of leaves on the sidewalk is one of the joys of fall.

That’s right: I am an apologist for nature.  So sue me.

Cities are not so forgiving.  Every day on my walk to work I see workers with large bags and leaf blowers.  They have been at it for weeks, and still I see no dent in the leafy covering.  It made me wonder – how much do municipalities pay for leaf removal during the fall, and where does that money come from?

It turns out that the answer varies from place to place.  A web search brought up a random sampling of information.  For example, the city of Portland, faced with a budget shortfall in 2010, instituted a $30 fee for leaf removal to cover about $800,000 in missing revenue. The move angered some residents, who had always enjoyed free leaf removal before.

In other parts of the country, leaf removal is included in city services and is paid for presumably by property tax revenue, but for homeowners who have to foot the bill themselves, costs average around $400 nationally, though they can be much higher in certain areas – according to HomeAdvisor,  Seattleites can expect to pay an average of $665 for leaf removal, with costs going as high as $1300 a season.

As for me, good old elbow grease with a rake suffices for my yard. My daughter and I love to jump in the leaves.  And the collected material makes great compost.

Enjoy the fall, folks, and appreciate the leaves while you can.

One re-usable piece a day

Before I picked up garbage, I scavenged.  I learned it from my parents, who taught me that the dumpster behind Ralphs at Wilshire and Bundy contained perfectly usable food – lettuce that might have a few bad leaves, bread that was not quite fresh but not yet stale or moldy.  By the time I was 12 I was wandering the alleys of Brentwood and finding treasures in trash cans.  To this day I cut wood with an axe whose head I found discarded in an alley.

Ok, in hindsight, finding a discarded axe in an alley in Los Angeles might have been less a reason to exult and more a reason to call the police, but I was young and it was a cool find.

While I’ve left my dumpster-diving days behind me, I am not blind to good finds. A few weeks ago I spied a perfectly good neoprene knee brace at the park ‘n ride I frequent.  I left it or a day to make sure nobody was coming back for it.  A bird had pooped on it, but after a trip through the washer it was good as new.  I have a trick knee and I periodically have need for a brace.

Today was a two-find day.  On my walk to work, after collecting a bagful of random detritus, I found a brand new bandanna.  It was lying in the street.  I peered at it carefully to make sure it didn’t contain anything objectionable, but it seemed to only carry stains from having been run over a few times.

Then, at the park ‘n ride on my way home, a re-usable plastic Starbucks coffee cup was discarded in the bushes.  My keen sense of observation tells me that somebody was drinking liquor out of it.  Both have received a very thorough series of washings in very hot soapy water, and are ready to go into rotation.

I draw the line at underwear, socks, shoes…  you might be surprised how often those crop up.  I have to admit I often have a difficult time bringing myself to pick those up to discard them.  Hand washing – it’s not just for dinnertime.

Who can resist free stuff?  Pick up a piece a day and it will happen!