I found this bag from Backyard Burgers in a mall parking lot. I wish that fast food suppliers would encourage their patrons not to litter. They need to add that to their mission statement. For the next few days, we will be featuring the fast food litterer of the day. We encourage you to contact the company to promote recycling.
I found this empty beer bottle in an empty movie theatre parking lot.
I volunteer at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. Saturday was Ice Day, a day hightlighted by feeding the animals “treats” frozen in ice. The Zoo as a courtesy handed out flyers to let visitors know when the ice treats would be fed to certain animal. I found this crumpled schedule tossed in front of the cassowary exhibit. Of course, a trash can was near by.
Planettrash has been on vacation the past week, plus we’ve been reading the latest Harry Potter book. We’re back from Chicago, which is an extremely clean city for the number of people who live and who visit there. The most disgusting thing we saw was a used diaper under a bench along Lake Michigan. We didn’t photograph it as we suspected that the litterer was sitting nearby. We were most impressed with the city parks and the numbers of planters with flowers along the main thoroughfares.
Later today, we’ll post some photos of recent trash found around our home city of Nashville.
LATER: Oops, no photos today.
Our neighborhood attracts those who place their advertisements directly onto our mailboxes. We find two or three of these each week on our mailbox. Different services, both professional and amateur, do this. We get anything from real estate agents to babysitters wanting our services. Unfortunately, most of the advertisements wind up in the street after being blown off the red flag of the mailbox. I once called a real estate agent and told him to come back and pick up his newsletters which were trashing my neighborhood. I told him that there is a service called mail which is delivered by the USPS directly to the inside of my mail box. I’ve never used any of the services advertised and stuck illegally to my mail box. I just recycle them.
Here’s one I picked up off my front lawn advertising dog sitting services. It does have a great business name, DogMa, although I don’t think our cat, Tiger, agrees.
Here are more pictures of trash dumped near my neighborhood. We have a broken bathroom vanity bowl, a baby swing and an auto catalog. All legally there according to our Metro Public Works.
We contacted Metro Public Works about the trash heaps by our subdivision. Public Works will not clean up the garbage because it’s on private property. They advised us to contact the health department. Since there are hazardous wastes on the property, such as paint and broken glass, we will contact the Metro Health Department. We’ll let you know what happens.
I’m old enough to remember Mrs. Johnson’s efforts at the beautification of our roadways in the 60s. At the time, we made fun of the sometimes funny way she talked, as “Plant a boo-sh.” Mrs. Johnson, I’ve planted many shrubs (as I try to use the word “Bush” as little as possible) during my life. I enjoy planting trees, flowers and other greenery and watching them grow making the world a little prettier in my little corner.
While the junkyards are mostly gone from roadways, I know where one is along a stretch of McCrory Lane in Tennessee.
Lady Bird Johnson
1912-2007
I’m traveling for work this week, and I brought my camera to Wisconsin to take photos of their street trash. There is very little litter here. Maybe a can or two here or there, but nothing major. When I stop at a redlight and look at the curb, it is not paved with cigarette butts. I suppose most Wisconsin smokers know that there are container in their cars are for butts. It hurts to say that Tennessee Trash is alive and well in 2007.
It’s not the title of a country song, but one of the things I get maddest about because of its danger as well as the fact that it’s littering. Hauling “things” in an open truck bed should not be legal. I have spent thousands of dollars repairing my car because I’ve hit pieces of a wooden pallet and a blown semi truck tire on the interstate. I drive defensively looking ahead in the road for pieces of furniture dumped out of open bed trucks. I’ve had a dresser drawer slide out of a truck in front of my car. Fortunately I was able to move into the left lane and avoid it. One morning, I was driving out of town very early, and a hardback book hit the driver’s side of my windshield. It wasn’t War and Peace, but made a SMACK on the windshield and frightened me.
A horrible accident happened on the interstate a few years back when mattresses fell out of a truck and killed several people in a car hit by them. After that happened, I hoped that legislation would be passed to outlaw open bed hauling, but folks continue to haul and dump.
Recently I’ve spotted a destroyed mattress on the side of the interstate, after some poor soul hit it. It’s insides are blown everywhere. I see chairs on the side of the interstate, and I know that these toppled out of trucks. I saw a semi trucker run over a plastic play gym as it fell out of an open truck in front of him. No, the play gym didn’t survive. I don’t have any photos to attach to this post because it’s too dangerous to take photos on the interstate. Someone’s bed may hit me.
The Earth Is Not a Trash Can