Please Help Clean Up Wayland!
Collect Litter Before Grasses/Ivy Grows
Dear Friends:
Much of my enjoyment of the stunning spring weather has been marred by the equally stunning amount of litter easily visible along the roadsides of our town. It’s astounding, and I’m outraged. How about you?
Call me naïve, but I can’t believe there are so many lazy, callous, uneducated, uncaring or rude people travelling the scenic roads of Wayland who could account for this year’s huge amount of litter.
Who does this? Who is so unaware or uncaring that they think it’s OK to throw plastic-glass-aluminum-cardboard trash out their car windows?
This "party dump" is on Rice Road near the bend across from Church of the Holy Spirit in Wayland. It's down a steep hill on the West side of the road, but easily visible to walkers and bike riders. Most of this is plastic and cans. There are plenty such dumps around town in open public spaces. Please help pick up after these rude people – and recycle what you can.
For the past five years I’ve organized a town-wide, roadside cleanup campaign called Wayland Cleans Up! I’ve personally picked clean many sections of roadway – particularly those I bike on routinely. These beautifully stretches now are litter-strewn and ugly. It’s sad and disheartening.
And while this kind of thing usually spurs me to redouble my actions, there will be no official cleanup effort this year. Several factors have lead to this decision, including picking a date! Alas, it just will not happen.
BUT… that said… each of us can do some cleanup and make quite a dent. I spent an hour last Saturday (March 24) cleaning up around Four Corners (Junction of 27, 126 and Old Conn Path). I did just about a quarter mile of road, and picked up two trash bags full of plastic, glass and much more. I sorted my collection into recyclables and took it to the transfer station with my regular weekly load.
Let me say thank you to the dozens of people I’ve seen carrying bags on their daily walks. Dudley Pond is quite clean, and other areas are pristine as well.
So if others of you are so inclined, please walk those “no-man’s-land” areas between houses like up and down Old Connecticut Path, and open spaces along Plain, Claypit Hill and Rice Roads. It seems the litterers think these are wastelands into which they can throw their litter. Lunch bags, shake containers, coffee cups and lids… none of that plastic will decompose, and glass ultimately will break and could injure someone. Many cans are discarded in good enough shape to return for the deposits!
Please get out there and clean a mile! We need an army of support on this. It’s important to get the litter up BEFORE mid April… when the poison ivy and bugs start to grow. The good news is the weather is making it easy to get outside now. With no flooding and warm temps, NOW is the time. Please help.
Wayland Cleans Up! organizer Cliff Kolovson collected roadside litter on Rte. 27 near Water Row this weekend as students, teachers and other volunteers worked on installing fencing behind the guardrails to block turtles from getting on the roadway. The area is an annual target for the roadside cleanup effort that will be held this year on April 9th. Wayland High teacher Emily Norton directed the turtle fencing project… and also helps Wayland Cleans Up! by organizing her students to help recycle collected litter.
--------
Check out these two videos on litter and its impact on our world.
Tony "Iron Eyes" Cody was most famous for his "crying Indian" role in the "Keep America Beautiful" Public Service Announcement (PSA) in the early 1970s, an ecology commercial in which an Indian (Cody) sheds a tear after some trash is thrown from a speeding car and lands at his feet. The announcer is William Conrad, of Bullwinkle and Cannon fame, who memorably declares: "People start pollution; people can stop it."
Not sure of the history of this ad... but the punch line is great... "What we do to our world we do to ourselves".... think about that!!! Ugh.
Today is: 