Litter pick up

This past long weekend me and some friends went to Elbow falls for a day hike. We followed the river down as far as we could go, and I picked up any trash I found along the way. Most of what I picked up were single use bottled water, and beer cans.

Beautiful Elbow falls.

This is a bag I filled with various water bottles. 6 single use and one Nalgene bottle.

Beautiful Rocky Mountain scenery. Too bad it was marred with the remnants of past hikers' garbage.

A few things I pulled out of the river

On the way I also found 5 doggy bags in various states of decomposition. People just leave the dog bags out in the woods because they didn't want to carry it all the way back. If that's the case why pick it up in the first place? Dog poop biodegrades. Plastic doesn't. So please, take it all the way to a garbage or don't even bother.

What I pulled out of my back pack at the end of the day. 9 beverage containers, an insole (we also found a moose light flip flop) and a bunch of plastic bags. Hikers! Carry in what you carry out. Don't dump it on the ground, especially not in a pristine natural environment such as Elbow Falls.

The biggest litter catastrophe I found though was at a picnic site near the falls. Some family had packed up their garbage (4 garbage bags worth) but then just left it in the woods. Birds and other animas had gotten into them and when I found it styrofoam plates, plastic cutlery, watermelon rinds and rice was was scattered around. I was horrified, and quickly proceeded to gather it all up. I was just so disgusted with people, who couldn't even carry their garbage twenty feet to the parking lot, where they probably had to go any way. Why do people think it's ok to just leave your garbage out in nature? It's styrofoam, it's plastic. It's not biodegrading anytime soon. It doesn't take that much effort to be responsible and clean up after yourself. We shouldn't be producing that much waste, let alone dumping it in the woods. Our society is built around convenience and it's taking its toll on our environment.

I really feel like in the future, humanity will be known for our legacy of producing inordinate amounts of waste that we don't know what to do with. And personally, I don't want to be a part of it. I would rather be known for the lengths I will go to in order to clean up other people's garbage, and to right their wrongs.

If you want to start doing the right thing but need a bit of a boost, there's a lot of good events out there. On Facebook there's plenty of pages that promote litter pick ups.

This is an event put on by Give a Shit About Nature called May Global Litter Pick Up. I t doesn't matter if you do it in groups, or by yourself, just try and pick up litter when you see it on May 25th. It isn't that difficult, the hardest part is starting. I love picking up litter, it gives me a good feeling and it really isn't hard work.

Here's another good page Called theTwo Hands Project, which promotes the two hands half an hour challenge, where you see how much litter you can collect in half an hour. There's some crazy pictures on there and it goes to show how much of a difference one person can make. And when we all act together the results can be staggering.

So do us all a favor, pick up your trash! And never EVER litter.

:)