The right enviro-friendly person for me is willing to dress up in shabbiest clothes and brave mosquitoes, sun exposure and other people's garbage. The meet up place for the river clean-up project was right on the exercise path to make it easy for those of us who commute more simply whenever possible.
My date and I were provided a bag designated for recyclables (cans, plastic bottles), a pair of work gloves with no-slip grips and two additional bags for trash. We were assigned a section of the riverbank to work as a team of two to clean up debris and detritus.
The reason we signed on was the opportunity to do something positive for the environment together. And from what we picked up we really did help the miniscule area assigned to us. We found so many beverage containers, we had to flag down the support crew for a second recyclable bag and to ask where to put the scrap metal and automobile tires we found dumped near the dam. The most common item we found though was the plastic shopping bag in various forms from shredded and stuck in flood remnants to filled with sand or just carried on the breeze.
The call for volunteers had encouraged kids' groups and others to join for a wholesome activity or educational experience. I'm all for fostering life long volunteering and starting early with environmental awareness, though we saw a few individuals use the event to walk along the path and point out trash without picking it up. I suspect the post-cleanup pizza party had been the major draw.
My date and I agreed, we signed up to work and that meant ruin-our-already-worn-out-clothing hard labor and make a real difference. Just because we volunteered didn't mean we had a right to slack off. Our reward was the pizza (from a local entrepreneur) and natural soda (served in the can to join the other recyclables). We also had a chance to visit with the staff members of the water reclamation district and learn about what our city was doing to conserve and reuse water.
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