GUEST SPEAKER

Talkin'Trash with Kate Abrams!

I have been doing my best to “relax” this summer, which is something I rarely do. I’m a bit of a mule so not working or doing something without an end goal seems scary, like I’m going to get fired for something. Thankfully, my 13-year-old daughter, Autumn, has been out here for much of the summer and has gotten me to do things I have really wanted to for a while. Kayaking has always been one of my favorite outdoor activities because you can see animals you can never usually get close to by getting in the water and gliding around. We are both crazy about animals so seeing several varieties of turtles, frogs, and HUGE birds including a singing loon with BABIES has been the high point of our summer. 

Back on shore however we were quickly reminded of humans -- the shitty kind who throw garbage everywhere and burn plastic in the fire pits. I could say a lot about this (there would be a lot more swearing), but it has been better said by a really amazing person who lives in my community named Kate who has dedicated 19 summers to cleaning up other people’s garbage. I think about her post in our local “Front Porch Forum” newsletter from May 30th A LOT! Now, without further ado... Kate Abrams! 

I work for Vermont State Parks during the summers. I started back at Molly's Falls Pond State Park four weeks ago. Honestly, in the five years since the reservoir and surrounding forest became a state park, I had never seen such a mess at Molly's at the beginning of the season. I started to wonder: would those two lumber dumps have been left by the roadside if the dumpers knew that it would be a 67-year-old Granny, working alone, lifting those long 6x6s into the back of the truck, and that heavy back seat of a car, and the garage door, and the window with two broken panes of glass? And just a little further down the road there was a pile that included a large plywood sign, painted with a maple leaf in black and red, left leaning against a tree for all the passersby to admire. I had help from a colleague from Stillwater State Park to hoist that thing into the truck, and to pick up all the other scraps of lumber and painted signs scattered about.

Meanwhile, back at the launch, the portalet had been vandalized. The pot was full, but if there hadn't been so much trash thrown into the hole, there would be more capacity to hold its intended contents, people in need would not get angry, and angry people would not break the toilet paper dispenser, and would not need to resort to using the surrounding area for the purpose. Incidentally, it's that same old Granny who picks all that up off the ground. And the diapers and beer cans that are in the pot? The honey dipper can't suck that junk up because it will clog the hose. They fish it out of the soup and Granny finds it on the ground and places it in her bucket. She doesn't particularly want it in her vehicle, either. Granny then heads out with her bucket and grabber to start on the cigarette butts. Heavens to Murgatroyd! There were a lot of those this year. Cigarette butts are the most littered item on the planet. In water, they leach out chemicals that kill fish. Six trillion cigarettes are smoked every year, and two-thirds of the butts get flicked, 53% out of car windows. Seventy-seven percent of smokers don't consider butts to be litter, but in VT there is a $200 fine for dropping one on the ground. So, yes, butts are litter. I did a research project on garbage a few years ago. It was a real eye-opener, lemme tellya.

As I was picking up butts, a task that got my hand hurting from squeezing the grabber handle so much (like milking a barnful of cows by hand), I also found a lot of fishing line. I learned in my research that fishing line is by far the most dangerous kind of debris encountered by wildlife. There are countless Google images of animals dead or suffering, tangled in fishing line, some with a fishhook embedded in their mouths, feet, gut. I pick up great long lengths of the stuff, but most of what I find is wrapped around the blade of the lawn mower. It's really hard to see.

I wonder what people think as they are dropping their junk in a place where they will never see it again. Surely they don't guess that, when it has gone away, it has evaporated? Yet, it doesn't stay where they put it. It can only be a fellow human that follows behind them. Even when it is all picked up, it doesn't "go away”. It goes somewhere else. It will always be in the environment somewhere, tucked away where only the wildlife will ever find it. Or the folks who have to live near the dumps. 

Please, Everyone, deal with your own waste. Teach your children well. Set an example. Give Granny a break.

All that being said, I wish to thank you all for your patience with my prattle. And it is with deepest gratitude that, on behalf of all parks employees who ever carried a trash bucket, I thank all of the park visitors who kindly pick up trash they find on the ground. At Molly's Falls Pond State Park, known locally as the Marshfield Reservoir, I have spoken to many people who express their appreciation for our work in keeping the place clean. Staff can't take all the credit, though. Sometimes in our trash searches we will find that folks have gathered up a quantity of broken glass from the shores and left it in a neat pile in an obvious, safe place for staff to easily collect on their rounds. 

Kate

Thank you, Kate. I love your posts! Thank you for letting me share this with everyone. And THANK YOU to everyone who takes their garbage OUT of the wilderness. I could kiss your faces!