SURRY, Maine — It’s easy to miss — or ignore — the trash littering almost any roadside in Maine when cruising by at 35 or 55 mph.
So easy, according to Tim Pellett, that people often are amazed to see the scope and variety of garbage they find when they participate in an annual roadside cleanup he organizes in the Hermon/Bangor area.
“When you get out and walk through those ditches and in the woods, there is a lot of stuff tucked away out there,” said Pellett, adding that the situation was both “disgraceful and embarrassing.”
On Saturday, about 50 people joined Pellett for the Hermon/Bangor cleanup while another 25 or so people were busy filling bags of trash left alongside roads in Surry on Blue Hill Peninsula. Both events are organized annually to mark Earth Day, which falls on Sunday this year.
In Surry, participants found windows, furniture and tires along with all of the typical cans, bottles and household trash that end up along the side of the road. The Surry Community Improvement Association, which organizes the cleanup, often hauls to the transfer station enough garbage to fill about eight or nine pickup truck beds.
“It is just a community service that our organization is providing,” Rebecca Collison, president of the Surry Community Improvement Association said Saturday afternoon as the group wrapped up a “thank you” cookout at the Surry Elementary School.
This year is the 42nd annual Earth Day. Although there were fewer events planned around Maine than in some past years, a number of organizations in central and eastern Maine were offering ways for the public to mark Earth Day.
In Orono, the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine and other sponsors organized the annual HOPE Festival on Saturday. On Sunday, the College of the Atlantic planned a day of events — including bird walks, music and children’s activities — from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Another trash cleanup project was planned on Sunday in Bangor. Hosted by Main Street Corridor, the event focused on the area around Union Street, Buck Street, Main Street and Third Street.
In Belfast, sharp-eyed passers-by could harvest the latest offering from The Love Revolution, a mysterious group of artists that blanketed the city with art for Valentine’s Day.
This time, the group left dozens of small, intricate Earth Day collages tucked downtown Sunday morning which incorporated themes including flowers, birds, frogs and bees. The art was attached to packets of nongenetically modified seeds including heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, black popcorn and scarlet runner beans. They also left handmade wooden “bee boxes” for passers-by to grab.
All was free for the taking and many of the artsy offerings had vanished by midday.
The Love Revolution sent an email to the BDN before the Earth Day blitz which explained some of the project’s goals.
“An anti-Monsanto, entirely recycled/recyclable art show, again free for the taking, in celebration of Earth Day!” the artists wrote. “We did purchase the seed packets, mostly from the Troy Howard Middle School garden project, so they are locally collected heirloom seeds and the purchase of the seed went to support the students and their garden project!”
Back in Hermon, Pellett said he organized the first roadside cleanup five years ago after getting discouraged about the amount of trash on Route 2. He now runs a website, www.mainecleanup.org, for his group, Maine Community Cleanup, which aims to reduce litter.
Saturday’s event, which focused heavily on Route 2 and Odlin Road but also many side roads, yielded about 100 bags of trash.
“This is the fifth year now and it has really snowballed into a community event,” said Pellett.
Of course, it doesn’t take long for the trash to begin accumulating again. Earle Farley, who was among the group cleaning up roadsides in Surry, said one passer-by tossed a bag of trash out of his or her car window even as he was picking up litter on that stretch of road.
BDN writer Abigail Curtis contributed to this report.
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I always hear that it is just men are pigs.;-0
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Slobs also were mainly men as were agressive drivers, but women have gained there too
Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb
I’ll see your quote with another, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” -Dr. Seuss The Lorax
Don’t worry. By then Wal Mart will sell trees cheap but the water is sold separately and won’t come cheap. Sort of like they’ll sell you an air purifier for $30 but the filters are expensive if you want clean air.
Somehow I doubt that Wal Mart is responsible for the cost of filters V air cleaners.
I think Maine is the cleanest state I’ve ever been in! Way to go Mainers!
When the courts suspend part of a prison sentence, they should mandate the suspended portion of the prison sentence be served as community service. And cleaning the roadways could be one way for criminals to serve that time.
Or we could have all those nice folks collecting welfare out there cleaning up the sides of the roads.
But how are they then going to search for a job?
It’s not like it would be a full time job for them. You figure there are typically five days in a work week; they could easily do three days a week doing cleanup. I really don’t think it would be hard to figure out a schedule. After all, keep in mind, they are already getting paid, some are also getting medical benefits, and food stamps…so, the real question is how come they aren’t already out there doing this?
I was being sarcastic because we know they are not going to look for a job “most of them” that is.
There was some promotion Maine once had some years ago as I recall. It was, “KEEP MAINE BEAUTIFUL” ; or was it, “KEEP MAINE GREEN”?
What incises me is that people could care less, as they drive along their way, tossing trash and unwanted things out of their vehicles onto the roadsides, and forgetting all about it. It has to be appreciated for the time these people like Earle Farley (using his free time and gasoline) to pick up roadside trash in the picture, takes to do this task.
Why is it that the Maine Economic Development or the Governor’s Office or even the Maine Chamber’s of Commerce come up with a program to “Keep Maine Beautiful” or something like that again? There must be fines (if caught) for people tossing trash in public places.
One solution for “Keeping Maine Green” could be having all those nice folks on welfare cleaning up the sides of the roads. You figure, they are already getting paid, some with benefits like medical coverage, and food stamps…so why not work off their “paycheck” from you and me and help keep maine green?
Yes but a lot of people that throw large trash items simply can’t afford a long trip to the dump only to be charged to simply throw something away at said dump. Sometimes if you can break something up you can get away with putting it into a trashbag and the trash crew won’t notice but most local trash pick up simply don’t take certain trash items such as window frames, TVs, and other larger items. I don’t throw stuff on the road but the truth is that many good people feel they have no choice. Its not that they want to be “pigs” as someone else put it. But then again there are a certain number of people that will throw their baby’s diapers into a store parking lot or their take out bag on the side of the highway and those are the real pigs. But there are a lot of people that don’t want to pay to throw something away. That overpriced TV cost enough to bring home and now they expect people to “pay” to throw it away when it gets old.
That is no excuse…there are a handful of resources out there that will take your electronic items for FREE..just need to know where to look. Today, you could have taken your items to the Challenger Learning Center… http://clcofme.org/calendar/details/97-electronic-waste-recycling-event. There is also a company in Brewer that will collect items for free.
It costs $5 to dispose of a television at our local dump. If someone can’t afford that, how can they afford to replace their television to begin with?
If I remember correctly the “recycling fee” included in the cost of new appliances was to pay to disposal of the item down the road, wha happened?
I have no idea what happened, but that wasn’t at all my point. The point is, if you can afford to replace your television, how can you not afford $5 to dispose of the old one? It may not be right (and it frustrated me too), but it’s not an excuse for being a slob and tossing your stuff on the side of the road for someone else to pick up.
I agree, I was just pointing out another government boondoggle
There is absolutely NO justification for illegal dumping or littering. Case closed.
It is amazing the amount of trash people toss out of their vehicles. My sister and I walk 5 miles a day on the same stretch of road. Early summer, after the ditches dry out, we will take trash bags on one of our walks and pick up trash. The next day, more trash. It’s unbelievable how people can be such pigs.
Stop being insulting. Pigs don’t litter.
Haha. You are completely right. That comment WOULD be insulting to pigs :)
Some people are simply apathetic sluggards and proud of it! Ignorance when willful ,is criminal.
A lot of people that drive pickup trucks love to litter. They could care less what fly’s from their trucks bed as they travel down the road.
They don’t care a lot about the price of my gasoline either.
Cigarette Butts especially.
All I see in these comments is complaining. Hopefully at least one of you will get offline and go outside this weekend and do some cleaning up on our roadways….its in my plan for the day. Kudos to the volunteers in the article- thank you!
I am hoping for a great turnout this morning at the Bangor Clean Up. I know there will be at least four people there (my family).
We’ll be there too :)
Excellent!
Around our area the trash is far and away mostly of fast food origin. I think we ought to have a wrapper deposit on every fast food item sold, just like the bottle bill. That will make those responsible pay for cleaning up our beautiful state that they thoughtlessly trash as they drive around eating. Then the police should start writing citations for eating and driving. After all, it is “distracted” driving and no less a hazard than texting is.
The returnable idea obviously doesn’t work…if it did then my kids and I wouldn’t end up bringing roughly 60$ worth of returnables in to the redemption center every spring when we walk the sides of the roads here locally picking up trash. Just what we need is more of a police state. How about we just hire more State workers and have them drive us around since obviously we can’t be responsible to do it ourselves? The answer isn’t in the government or in the police departments…the answer is right at home. If you litter, your kids will see that and think it is acceptable…then they will do it. Common sense goes a long way, it’s just too bad that common sense isn’t “Common”.
I understand your point and agree that common sense and personal responsibility should work here. But it doesn’t. So how do you convince people to stop trashing our roads. Well it would seem the returnable idea does work because you and your children actually did pick up $60 worth rather than just leaving them on the roadside. Plus, one would assume, that without the returnable bottle law there would be a lot more bottles on the road in the first place. Look, the trash is 90% fast food trash. Let the people who eat fast food pay for fixing the problem. That’s how I see it.
Over here in Clark Co. WA. we have a program for the cleanup of our roadsides. It involves inmates in county lockup. A local landscaping out fit contracts with the county and shepherd them around to do cleanup of roads, graveyards and local parks. The workers are doing community service and get time off for good behavior.
The county had to cut back some because of finances. When this happens another program started to pick up the slack. Community people ‘adopted’ roads to clean up. The problem with that is they need to go through a training program to ‘learn’ how to pick up trash. They wouldn’t want the people out there getting hurt.
Kind of ironic. The people know how to throw it out the window but need to learn how to pick it up.
As my 7-year-old puts it, “People who litter are poopy!”
Wise wise child.
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I’ll make sure I burn an extra tire.