THIS IS THE MOST TRASH I'VE SEEN YET

 

This may seem like a repeat of yesterday, but it's so much worse.  It was raining when I went out, and I don't usually pick up trash in the rain, but my phone said it was supposed to stop in 22 minutes, so I went out.

I parked at McDonald's and wanted to cross the street to clean an area that looked bad driving by, but look at the trash around McDonald's!

It was like this all the way around the restaurant.  Ick!

Here's the area I wanted to clean, but I couldn't pick it all up.

It was surrounded by these giant thorn trees!  I've seen a lot of briars, not nothing like this.  

They were an inch long!  They would do some serious damage to my body, and I'm really not okay with that.

I cleaned all I could, and from the road, it looks way better.  There's still a lot of trash inside the thorns, and I'm guessing the homeless people live here, based on the number of needles I found.

This is a project for the City of Akron, not me.  

Even if I could get through the thorns, it's not safe.

So I continued down Thornton to Broadway.  What a huge mess on this corner!  

How did I not know this street was so trashed up?

I got that all cleaned up, and glanced across Broadway at the opposite corner.  

It looked pretty clean, but I had 35 minutes left, so I crossed the street to check it out.

It was not clean at all!  OMG!  It was horrible!  

The water bottles, liquor bottles and plastic bags were buried in the dirt and grass, which means this area is not cleaned.  It just gets mowed over.

I didn't get it all cleaned up.  There's probably enough here to fill three more trash bags!

But it looks way better, and I'll keep working at it.   Just like all the other areas I clean regularly, the next time will be so much easier.

I filled five big trash bags, and found a mud flap from a semi truck.  That's a LOT of trash for 2 1/2 hours.

I picked up 2,466 pieces of trash tonight, and I'm cold and wet, but what a huge difference I made.

Funny thing, not one person beeped or said "Thank you."  I wonder why.  

Maybe the people who did notice thought I was nuts for picking up trash in the rain.  (And maybe I am!)