Clean Up (a small part of) Australia
Since we have moved out here we have cleaned up a small section of Captains Flat Rd (apart from the infamous year when the lawyers of the Clean-Up Australia HQ declared it to be too dangerous). Today was the day for 2014.
This clip from Google Earth shows my site. I started off parking at point 1, which is an area used by Palerang Council to store road fill and similar material. It is also where the school buses pick up and drop off kids.
This year this area was in a particularly foul condition. Here is a sample: the appearance of the Golden Arches on a couple of the items is not something I posed.
It would be unfair to attribute all this crap to the workers or the kids since I suspect others use the area as a meeting point, but by the time I moved on from this small area I had collected half a bag of recyclables and 2/3 of a bag of pure garbage.
My route was to walk down to point 3 in the clip image and then cross the road to come back to the car. As I was on the way back up a charming couple of coordinators arrived and took my full bag of crud, providing me with another bag and a very welcome fruitbox drink. As I got back close to point 1 my recyclables bag was full so I put that in El Camion and went across the road to the morning bus shelter.
There was very little garbage on the ground there but as shown in the next two images the kids have been having fun insulating the shelter with packaging.
I decided this wasn't mucking up the environment and looked quite amusing so have left it there as an art installation!
I then drove down to point 4 and did an up and down to cover the second half of my stretch.
Allw as then loaded into the car (including about half a bag of cans and bottles from point 4 itself where I presume the piggers gather before heading out to enjoy themselves in Tallaganda). Thence off up the road to where the pile was being gathered for pick up by the folk from Queanbeyan City Council (thanks guys).
Near the transfer point matters were a bit organised with warning signs.
Some volunteers were still hard at it as I returned home.
The most common item by number of items was packaging from the Golden Arches. This is easy to understand as every item has a package and then there is at least one transport bag. So a few burgers, fries and drinks plus sauce and condiments and there is 6-10 bits of litter from one order.
In terms of weight I suspect Melbourne bitter stubbies win the day, although bourbon-and-cola containers - a mixture of bottles and cans would come close.
For beverage trash generally the clear winner by number was Energy Drinks. Red Bull was out-gunned (again) by Mother but both of these companies should be subject to legal sanctions for the mess their products make. It is hard to blame their users who are obviously illiterate (if they could read, they'd know how unhealthy this stuff is). Judging by what I observe after many Grands Prix car races these are the tracks of a Red Bull user:
In terms of unhealthy, it was good that I only found about 6 fag packets. Presumably cancer and heart attacks are cutting down the number of users there.
This clip from Google Earth shows my site. I started off parking at point 1, which is an area used by Palerang Council to store road fill and similar material. It is also where the school buses pick up and drop off kids.
My route was to walk down to point 3 in the clip image and then cross the road to come back to the car. As I was on the way back up a charming couple of coordinators arrived and took my full bag of crud, providing me with another bag and a very welcome fruitbox drink. As I got back close to point 1 my recyclables bag was full so I put that in El Camion and went across the road to the morning bus shelter.
There was very little garbage on the ground there but as shown in the next two images the kids have been having fun insulating the shelter with packaging.
I then drove down to point 4 and did an up and down to cover the second half of my stretch.
Allw as then loaded into the car (including about half a bag of cans and bottles from point 4 itself where I presume the piggers gather before heading out to enjoy themselves in Tallaganda). Thence off up the road to where the pile was being gathered for pick up by the folk from Queanbeyan City Council (thanks guys).
OK: it is time for the Hall of Shame awards.
I picked up 2 sacks each of recyclables and pure crud. A very soiled cushion and some shattered roof tiles (!! presumably fell off a tradie's truck and he couldn't be bothered picking them up) would have filled another sack, but I just left them in car. In total this is about the normal amount of refuse for this stretchThe most common item by number of items was packaging from the Golden Arches. This is easy to understand as every item has a package and then there is at least one transport bag. So a few burgers, fries and drinks plus sauce and condiments and there is 6-10 bits of litter from one order.
In terms of weight I suspect Melbourne bitter stubbies win the day, although bourbon-and-cola containers - a mixture of bottles and cans would come close.
For beverage trash generally the clear winner by number was Energy Drinks. Red Bull was out-gunned (again) by Mother but both of these companies should be subject to legal sanctions for the mess their products make. It is hard to blame their users who are obviously illiterate (if they could read, they'd know how unhealthy this stuff is). Judging by what I observe after many Grands Prix car races these are the tracks of a Red Bull user:
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