THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME WHERE THE TRASH IS!

 

One of my really good friends sent me a text this morning:  "Debbie, one of the girls in my office was telling me that Metro Transit at Broadway is a mess with trash.  Her husband mows for Metro and she said the trash is unbelievable."

So even though I was hoping for an easy  night, I headed to Broadway.  Unfortunately, I didn't know where Broadway was.  My navigation took me all over campus.  Hard to believe I didn't know where Broadway was!  It's a main street going through Akron!  I didn't know where it was, because I've never needed to know before.

Finally, I pulled over and got the address of the RKP Transit Center, and it was just a block from where I've been picking up trash!  How crazy is that!  I need to fire my navigation system!

So I parked my car and started looking for the awful mess.  I found it by the railroad tracks!  Ick!  I'm not sure that's where she was talking about, but that's where I started.  

And it was a pretty scary area.  I felt all alone, but I definitely wasn't alone.  People walked by constantly, and everybody said hello.   One guy on a bike said, "Thank you for what you're doing."  I didn't expect that.

I picked up all the trash from here to where you can see the bridge.  What a huge difference!  The weeds are still there, but all the cans and bottles are gone.

At one point, I saw a vehicle with the Metro Transit logo stopped in the parking lot.  I thought they were watching out for me, and that made me relax a little.  But then I saw them drive around and around and around, so I think it was a driving lesson of some kind.

Still, I liked that they were there.

I was a little worried about the train tracks being so close, but people were walking back and forth across the tracks, and there were no trains.

No wait!  There was a train!  It was a very long, very loud train!

I stayed far away from the tracks, and I waved to the engineer as he went by, blowing his whistle. I can only imagine the trash he sees.

I only picked up 1,840 pieces of trash in three hours, but it was a lot.  Picking tangled litter out of the weeds is always hard, but there were so many big pieces, like carpet padding and metal bars.  And gross stuff, like underwear, condoms and lots of alcohol wipes.

I put all that trash in my car and headed to the nearest dumpster.  I hate putting bags of trash in my car, because of bugs, but I didn't want to leave it in the parking lot.

This was another one of those days when I couldn't wait to get home and shower.  I'm so glad this is just a fun hobby for me and not a job.  Some days are definitely more fun than others.  

Even though it was hard tonight, the end result was extremely rewarding.  The landscaping at the Transit Center is unbelievably beautiful.  I'll go back tomorrow and finish.