There's trash in the winter!

 

You might be surprised that there's as much litter in the winter as there is the rest of the year.  It won't go away.  It has to be picked up.

I cleaned up the trash around this gas station.  It was pretty hard, because pieces of trash had been mowed over.  That's how I know nobody has picked up any trash around this area since summer.

It's interesting to see people watching me pick up trash.  What are they thinking?  Are they wondering if I'm doing community service?  Are they wondering if they can pick up trash too?  Are they wondering if I'm nuts, picking up trash in the frigid weather?

I get lots of horns blowing and lots of thumbs up.  Occasionally, I'll get someone yelling out the window, "YOU ARE AWESOME!"

If I'm feeling tired, I get so energized by that!  I try to keep a smile on my face, so they know I'm not suffering.  Sometimes I'll find something really gross, like a gallon of spoiled milk, and the smile turns into a frown, but not very often.

It didn't take me very long to pick up all the trash, and it looks so much better.  Will it still look good tomorrow?  Probably not, but that's okay.  New trash is always easy to pick up.

I like picking up trash close to a dumpster where I can empty my big 45-gallon bag several times.  If there's no dumpster, I can stuff 2,000 pieces of trash in a giant bag like this, but then I can't pick it up.

That happened at the entrance ramp to Route 8.  I had to ask Keep Akron Beautiful to pick up two of the four bags I filled.  They were kind enough to pick them up that day.

Do I get discouraged?  Not at all.  I can't stop people from throwing their trash on the ground, but I can pick it up.  Anybody can pick up trash.  Be sure to see my post on my trash cart . . . and my t-shirts . . . and why I started picking up trash in the first place!  It's very exciting!  

It'll be a year in February since I started on my mission.  That's not very long to have picked up 415,000 pieces of trash, and I get faster every day.  It used to take me an hour to pick up 100 pieces.  Now I can pick up 1,000 pieces an hour.