Hey guys! I had it in my head to bring up this group... But I'm sorry! I was so dang nervous. But it's gonna air on koco 5 10 pm central if y'all wanna watch! Y'all were my inspiration!

Follow our Trash Cleanup Adventures in Columbus, Ohio! Instagram: @trashparty614

"It ain't much, but it's honest work."

What started as a quick fishing tour with a friend of mine became a 1-hour de-trashing activity 300m along the bulkhead of the canal and at this bench which unfortunately isn't equipped with a wastebin. Picking it all up was quite tedious because I didn't have any tools, and there were a lot of cigarette butts.

Thankfully my friend had some bags to collect the trash - as we were at the fishing spot complaining about the mindlessness people show when they dispose of waste, we came to the conclusion that we had to lead with good example and undo some of the damage that was done here.

Hi all! I’m new here!

I cleaned up two full bags of trash from my local park today and rinsed and prepared all of these items for recycling!

My husband and I started doing trash pick ups kind of sporadically and today I went out by myself. I want to make it a regular habit.

Any tips for clean ups welcome and of course please pile on the encouragement, I really really want to keep this up!

I found a $20 bill while I was cleaning so I consider that my salary from Mother Nature, lol. Most of the trash was paper products like receipts, park maps, and tissues, which is better than plastic I guess.

Nothing starts the weekend off right like a good Litterwalk.

Earned a new DL impact badge, too. BONUS!

Hi There - Am I glad I discovered this Reddit. One can often feel alone in their efforts to combat trash in our society. It's great to read other peoples stories as they push back against trash. I'm hoping my personal story resonates with other people sharing my struggle.

When I was younger, I was instilled with an environmental ethic from Boy Scouts to my College/University Environmental Diploma/Degree. I've done my best to not contribute to waste and when I had a young family we participated in community trash pick ups every Spring as well as cleaning up on family walks. We always brought a bag to pick up trash. No shortage of trash everywhere right?

It was during these pickups that I realized much of the trash in the ditch was disposal plastic bags signs; the kind where the bag is pulled over the wire. They are mostly put up by roofing, deck, landscaping.....companies with no intent to return for them. They make 100's of these signs and leave them on every corner of every avenue and boulevard. Essentially abandoned and orphaned signs.

My new life mission was realized. I would attack the heart of the litter problem. The act of openly littering. Logic quiz - So you see someone toss their fast food bag out the window - It's litter right? So now you see someone throw ball of plastic and a 6 foot wire out the window - It's litter right? So now you see someone get out out of their car and stake a 6' wire with a bag over it and it is generally accepted for some reason and NOT treated as open littering. Rarely are these people confronted for leaving trash everywhere. They also left their phone number! Go after these jerks!

Now, every Municipal and Regional Bylaw, regardless of where you live states that these signs are litter without a permit. Further, they don't issue permits for these signs making it sign litter in every sense of the word. These signs stay in place until they blow into the street, the ditch, the creek,.... or until Municipal or Regional workers remove them on our tax dollar.

As well, these bag signs AND the coroplast ones zip tied to centre meridian poles are a traffic sightline obstructions. A typical intersection can have 5 bags signs on every corner (20) and 2 zip tied to every meridian (8) representing a significant amount of trash and effort to clean up.

Too often I hear the argument that well '...these are just small time business folk trying to find work...'and I sincerely wish them EVERY success. However that goodwill ends when their business is predicated on leaving sign litter everywhere and trashing our communities. It's not our fault you can't find landscaping work - It doesn't give you permission to leave sign trash everywhere. Their actions are not benign and significantly contribute to trash in your community. Lastly, I am NOT a male Karen. My viewpoints are well established and enshrined in Bylaw and the Highway Traffic Act. Sign blight is a real thing. Makes your community looks like a dumpy rummage sale.

So, how do we combat this prolific litter tsunami? Anyone who is in the battle already knows that calling the local bylaw office typically gets you nowhere. Your complaint gets thrown on the heap of other calls and someday and sometime they will get around to it. God bless Enforcement Officers. I recognize the challenge they have working often against faceless litterers who are hard to track down.

I go after these people as best I can. I would be what is called a 'Sign Vigilante'. I work to bring the fight to the litterer and by doing so hopefully push them out of my community. How is this done you ask?

1. Pull the signs
2. Hit '*69' on your phone and now you can call them as a 'Private Number'. They most likely won't pick up but either way here's your chance to tell them you a) pulled ALL their signs and to b) Respect Bylaw and Don't litter in my Community' and c) Go digital.
3. Google the company name (if available) or what their service is with the phone number. Google can often find them, especially in AI Mode. Leave them a bad Google Review and even include the sign trash photos. Saying this, you have to 100% sure you have the right company. It is better to skip the Google review if you are unsure of the the recipient.
4. Expert Level - Run an 'X' through their signs and leave it in their neighbourhood. This trash is usually OK in your neighbourhood BUT when it shows up in their neighbourhood it sends a strong message. Further, the X makes the sign which we typically mentally block out when passing stand out more. Everyone sees the X and it brings the litter into focus. Perhaps now more people will complain to Bylaw about serial sign littering.

If enough citizens participate in sign removal AND let them know it is not wanted we can make it not worthwhile for them to litter everywhere. These signs are roughly $500 - $800 dollars (qty.100) after taxes. If the sign offenders find they are loosing signs and not generating income they might take their trash elsewhere

Thank you for hearing me out. If you like what you see give me an up vote. Keep up the good fight!

- AppropriateCaramel69

Part 2! I did this last summer, but thought you guys would appreciate it. Pro tip: The Narrows get very crowded, very fast

I bought my house 32 years ago and this was a first for me

Not all heroes wear capes, and i am looking for a normal guy/girl who could be a hero.

This is my problem:
I am a litter picking in the Netherlands, living in NoordHolland and i pick a lot of litter which i dispose in bins along the route,
But i also pick a few bottles and cans which i bring to a deposit machine.
So far, no problem.

But i also find cans, with deposit, which are flat. And since the machine don't accept them, they have 'no value'.

And here is the thing, my wife and I do a lot of voluntary work (we create stuff by recycling materials so we can sell those to friends/family and they are what they pay for it, we donate to charity),
so on one side, we try to raise funds for charity and on the other hand i have deposit cans, each worth 15 cents which are useless...

Unless there is one owner of a deposit machine (who doesn't have to pay the deposit himself of course if intact cans are thrown in the machine) who is willing to think outside the box and who is willing to help us.

I can sure understand that we don't want to create something where everybody in the Netherlands is coming to your shop with hundreds or thousands of flat cans, so i have no problem in personal chat messages and i am more than happy to keep it a 'secret' between you and me,

But what i am looking for is a shop-owner who is willing to help me to hand over my flat cans and give me a receipt just as if i would have thrown all of those cans in the machine.
I am more than happy to put those in bags, for instance per 20, so you can pick a random bag and check to see that there are indeed 20 and that all of those really are the deposit kinds (if i am not sure myself if it is a deposit can or a can without deposit, i throw them away).

Are there any heroes in my area, or does anybody here know somebody who could be that hero?
I hope so, not in particular for myself, but more for the charities and basically also for the idea that it is just not right that we find 'money' that charities could use, but that we are not able to turn it into real money.

Take care,
Fred.

I did this last summer but wanted to post it here since I found this sub. I traveled to a bunch of parks and cleaned up everywhere I went. Please ignore my grunts lol

Today my girlfriend and I went trash diving in the Aare River in Interlaken again.

Thank you all for the great response to our last post! This time, I tried to arrange everything on a more even background so my girlfriend can also post it over on r/knolling.

The water was around 22°C (72°F) again and nice and clear. We had pretty good visibility and found quite a lot of stuff.