TRASH ON ENTRANCE RAMPS IS BAD!

 

This is the entrance ramp from Waterloo Road to Route 8 North.  It looks pretty awful . . . but I've seen it look a lot worse!

I don't know what happens when people get on an entrance ramp to the freeway.  It's like they are thinking, "Wow, I have a lot of trash in my car!  I better throw it out so I don't have to look at it for the next two hours!"

There's no other explanation for the amount of trash on entrance ramps.  Exit ramps are just as bad.  I'm thinking people are eating as they're driving, and maybe they dump out the trash on the exit ramp because they don't want their family to know they just had McDonald's without them!

It makes no sense to me.  They can't keep a bag in their car for litter?  How hard is that?

Here's how the entrance ramp looked after I cleaned it.

I am always very careful to stay way over to the side so I don't distract cars that are gaining speed to merge with traffic.

I wish entrance and exit ramps could look like this all the time.  Maybe a big trash can would help.  People might throw trash out the window in the direction of the trash can, and it would be easier for a volunteer to pick up.  But then it would look like we were encouraging people to throw trash out the window, wouldn't it?

Picking up trash is hard, but finding a place to park so I can walk to the entrance ramp, and then lugging all the trash back to my car, then finding a dumpster somewhere . . . it's a lot of work.

And that pretty much explains why I'm out there by myself.

I picked up all this trash at this one entrance ramp.  My 32-gallon bag was stuffed to breaking, so there was probably some I missed.

You can see my blue recycle bin.  I collect and smash aluminum cans, and when I have six 45-gallon bags full, I take them to the recycle place in Barberton.  The last time, I received a check for $55, and I used that money to buy more trash bags.

Instead of the 32-gallon bag that gets full too fast, I am now using 45-gallon construction bags.  I just have to remember not to stuff it like this one, or it's too heavy, and I can't lift it into the dumpster.

I've been snowed in for a week, and I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can get back out there, picking up trash, working toward my one-million-piece goal.  I'm still at 421,000 pieces.  

My one-million-piece goal seems pretty far away, doesn't it?