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I worked this past weekend at the Rivers Alive cleanup at the Derby and Branch street locations. I only worked on one small space of land, but it was amazing (in a really horrible way) how much trash there was. When I first walked up, I was confused why I’d been asked to work in that space–it looked like it was normal forest floor. However, then I noticed that under the layer of vines on the surface, there was about foot deep pile of trash. So I would dig around the vines, pulling out mostly bottles but everything from diapers to bags to a whole chair. I did get stung by a bee.
I think the most shocking thing was that if I drove by this area, I would not have considered it “dirty”. I wouldn’t have even noticed the trash. Often, we look on the surface to decide, but this really made me realized litter is a huge problem everywhere. Moving forward, I would definitely get involved with a cleanup in the future. In addition, it would definitely help to pick up when I see items so they don’t get buried as much.