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Wayland Cleans Up!
Rakes In Dough and Trash

Community Cleanup A Clean Sweep

APRIL 20, 2009 – WAYLAND, MA – The stories from this year’s roadside litter cleanup campaign known as Wayland Cleans Up! were more unusual than usual. Oh, lots of trash did get collected, and certain areas are now MUCH cleaner… but oh, the surprises.

2009 Cliff
Cold cash found among the litter (we picked up all around it first....)! Not just one buck... but another and another and a fiver and .... well, we kept finding money! Who says litter pickup doesn't pay?

In five years of this clean-up, no one has found cash. Cold, hard – er, well, folding CASH. Dollar bills and FIVE-dollar bills were found right on the side of the road along with other litter. It wasn’t buried where you had to dig for it… it was just sitting there in plain sight ready to be snatched up like a discarded candy wrapper or beer can. A buck here, a buck there, five bucks over here. Who says litter pick up doesn’t pay?

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS

The bulk of the cash was found on Pelham Island Road behind the shopping plaza and near the entrance to the town building, although another dollar was found in the wetlands next to Whole Foods where a crew was cleaning up. Another fiver was found at the Hannah Williams Playground by a volunteer litter picker-upper.

Then there is the Police Investigation! We’ve never had one of those. Mike Lowry was patrolling Dudley Pond for litter with his wife Karen. “Along with shoes and other trash, we found an abandoned safe which had been torch-cut open,” he reported. He called Wayland’s finest who took photos and have investigated the Crime Scene. More later. Film at 11… or sometime soon.

These are great times in which we live. A clean town and tales to tell.

Road Trash

Wayland Cleans Up! organizer Cliff Kolovson holds aloft a plastic milk bottle retrieved from the middle of the marsh beside the Whole Foods parking lot on Saturday. Also yanked from the wetland area was construction netting, a shopping cart (deeply embedded) and scores of cans and plastic bits.

The weather held up for all our intrepid workers. Significant cleanup was done at River Road, and at Whole Foods Plaza, at Old Connecticut Path near Rte. 20, at Mainstone Road and Rice Road, and at Rice Road near Thompson Road and Rte. 30. Also noticed were cleanups on Rte. 30 both at the Dow Recreation site and various parts of the road between Donlan’s and the Mel’s shopping plaza. The high school perimeter, especially behind the student parking lot, is much cleaner and several other spots were reported cleaned of litter too.

Dozens of volunteers signed reporting sheets at the two locations (Whole Foods Supermarket and the Starbucks Coffee store) that hosted volunteers tables and coordinators Cliff Kolovson and Chris DeVany. Both sponsors provided refreshments to volunteers during the day. Other businesses in town have indicated they would like to sponsor such efforts and meetings will be held shortly to expand the effort to multiple times per year aimed at a cleaner Wayland.

A special thanks to the town landfill staff for providing dumpsters at Claypit Hill Elementary School and at Wayland High School. The one at the high school was clearly half full at the end of the day.

Organizers hope people continue to do cleanup whenever they can and report their work to the organization with a photo for the Web site – http://cleanup.pointed.com/!

Volunteers can participate anytime and anywhere in town – even if it’s just to walk their neighborhood and pick up paper, plastic, metal, wood, and more. There are plenty of roadways and trails that need cleaning up – the north end of Rice Road, big stretches on Rte. 20, and parts of Plain Road.

“We thank all who did participate and look forward to expanding the efforts,” said Kolovson.

Road Trash

Joan Blair, Betsy Salzberg and Sandy Coy not only gathered more than 5 bags of litter from Pelham Island Road and the access road to the Town Building, they found $20 in various size bills among the litter.

 

 

 
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