Another Day, Another Clean Up

On October 2nd, my family and I cleaned up one of my regular clean-up sites, Jamestown Landing, as a part of the annual Satilla River-wide clean-up event. It did not disappoint. For weeks before the event, the river was flooded and water was covering the boat ramp and coming into the parking the lot. My mother and I had taken a brief look at the area a few days before the event, and I shared my concerns that the flooded river would restrict us from being able to get all the trash. Fortunately, the river level went down, so the parking lot and road were ready for clean up. Unbeknownst to us, the mosquitoes would be everywhere and ready to strike. Only minutes after we arrived to the site, I was already covered in bites from my legs to my neck. This was going to be fun, I thought.

We weren’t going to let them stop us, though. I gathered the supplies and wished my family well as we split up to cover ground. My dad immediately sought out the carpet buried under various tree limbs, while my mother headed for the road. I was the dedicated recorder for this event, so I went between the two as they shouted the names of various pieces of trash. “Can! Two plastic bottles! A cigarette butt- no two- no three cigarette butts!” All the while I swatted away mosquitoes and danced in circles to get them off me. If it was filmed, it would have been very entertaining.

I followed my mother up the road as she picked up fragments of cans and styrofoam cups. Someone had recently decided to cut the grass in the area making our job significantly more difficult. We couldn’t even recycle some of the cans because they were torn apart so much. On my dad’s front, he accumulated quite the pile of trash beside him. The carpet was out, and he spotted a blue tailed skin in the midst. I took this opportunity to do a mini photo shoot because it gave off a clear message: Animals are living in our trash instead of in a healthy, clean environment. It was pretty heartbreaking. Featured below is one of the pictures I captured.

After that sad intermission, we continued. There were lots of cans, but what was even more surprising was a whole pile of DVDs that was thrown in the bushes. We counted 51 in all. It’s a shame they were burned, because I could have donated them.

At last, we finished with an estimated removal of 400 lbs. In true style, we had to take a selfie.