WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE THIS EXIT RAMP!

Since the cold weather let up, I've been out 12 days in a row.  I never thought I'd wish for snow, but I think I need a snow day!

I continued tonight where I left off yesterday.  I was headed for the exit ramp from Route 8 to Waterloo Road.  Since the entrance ramp on Wilbeth Road is closed, all the traffic is diverted to Waterloo.  I thought there might be a lot of trash, but I wasn't expecting to see what I saw.

I parked at the Dollar Store and walked two blocks to the exit ramp.  This picture shows a yard on Waterloo.  I cleaned one side before I took the picture.  You can see how much trash people are throwing on their yard.  I'm sure they don't even try to clean it anymore.  

Won't they be surprised when they look outside tomorrow and see how nice their yard looks?

When I got to the exit ramp, I was in shock!  I stopped picking up trash when my bag was full.  Not only that, it was getting dark.  

I picked up 1,380 pieces of trash before I headed back to my car.

I've been picking up trash for one year yesterday.  445,767 pieces.  February 6, 2023, is when my dog cut his nose on a piece of glass, and I started cleaning my neighborhood.  I thought I'd seen just about everything, but every day I see something that makes me say, "Oh my goodness!"  

How can there be so much trash at this exit ramp?   Do people getting off the freeway take a look at this and say, "Oh, hey, look!  Here's where we clean out our car!"

My guess is people don't feel a tiny bit bad throwing their garbage out when it already looks like a dump.  I'll go back tomorrow with a stack of bags.

This is why I need help.  I'm doing a lot.  Firestone Park looks great, most of it.  But can you imagine if I stopped picking up trash because I got sick or hurt?   I need people who care as much as I do, and I'm not expecting anyone to pick up a million pieces of trash like I'm going to.  If 100,000 people living in Akron picked up trash for just five minutes a week, I think we could keep our beautiful city clean.

On Friday, people getting off Route 8 onto Waterloo will stop at the light, look around and say, "Better not throw my trash here.  It's all cleaned up."