January 18, 2021
On January 18, Bill Walmsley didn’t think his daily trash pick-up from local streets was enough service for special day. So, he spent 2.5 hours collecting trash from the eastern side of Thomas Seabrook Neighborhood Park in Lanham. In addition to some large dumped items, including a tire and a TV, he found a disconcerting number of alcoholic beverage bottles, in this park with a well-used kids’ play area. Near the tennis courts he found about two-dozen tennis balls – he will see that these get reused by taking them to the Animal Shelter.
In Kett
ering, a small group of masked and socially distanced neighbors collected 12 bags of trash in Oak Creek West Community Park. Here too, there were dozens of tennis balls, as well as 4 baseballs and 6 golf balls. But again, they found a preponderance of glass alcoholic beverage bottles, along with single-use plastic bottle with ironic labels, such as “Pure Leaf” and “Deer Park.” Even with the requisite paired trash and recycling bins at this community park, these items still end up in the woods, not in the bins.
A different kind of greenhouse effect
Did you know that a glass bottle on the floor of the woods makes a little greenhouse under which a little carpet of bright green moss grows in the shape of the bottle? Nature finds a way, even as we humans seem to have trouble decreasing the size of our footprints