Litter in Skaneateles

The cart is out, freed from its watery bondage and wheeled to dry land. No identifying marks remained (past that of its manufacturer in Oklahoma City) and so it was parked at the closest dumpster to be disposed of, or cleaned and reclaimed, but hopefully never to return to Skaneateles Creek. In the same area, a cardboard beer case, a plastic bag of beer bottles and cans trapped by a tree alongside the creek, one “men’s magazine,” and in the grass alongside the creek, a driver’s license for Michael R. Mace of Elmira, New York, somewhat faded by the elements but going into the mail this morning.

Saturday morning brought sunny weather and an enthusiastic crew of litter hounds to Austin Park in Skaneateles, youth and adults from St. James’ Episcopal with empty garbage bags and a curiosity about what was in the ditch between State Street and Austin Park, and in the woods that fringe the park’s southeast corner. It was Imogen who put it best, calling out, “It’s a world of garbage down here.” In all, we filled four (4) bags with candy wrappers, paper, foil, plastic bags; a name tag for Morgan Deacy; a note reminding someone to “Check on Vera Bradley bags for Sarah;” an empty fifth of Bacardi rum; a homemade bong (handily crafted from a water bottle); bags of dog poop, sealed in plastic and then thrown into the woods (??); a sharp-edged metal lid from Skoal smokeless tobacco, many beer cans. And then there were balls: 2 softballs, either towering foul balls or errant throws to third base from the nearby diamond; 3 tennis balls; 1 soccer ball; 1/2 of a kickball; and three golf balls, including a TOP FLITE XL 2000 extra long, a DUNLOP STEELCORE DDH DISTANCE, and a TOP FLITE T3 XL More Roll.

Last night in the dark and rain of Thayer Park, a small pink pony, looking a little like Miss Piggy with four legs, blonde mane and tail, brought home, cleaned up, safe and dry. This morning, the profane: a Lowe’s paint stirrer and a plastic Minutemaid Orangeade bottle, and the sacred: a riot of chestnuts, dropped by nature, littering the sidewalk like so many shining mahogany sculptures, beyond perfect.

One plastic bottle that held Guzzler Iced Tea, “Made with Natural Spring Water” and “Enriched with Vitamins.” Really flat cans of Diet Pepsi and Red Bull. One flattened plastic water bottle, no label; one empty plastic cup; one cup lid and straw; one red rubber band. Six Tootsie Roll wrappers; one AIR HEADS wrapper. One label reading, “WARNING! KEEP ATTACHED UNTIL READ BY WEARER,” and on the flip side, “Always check with Safety Supervisor before using to be sure this is the proper goggle for the job.” Solid advice, and let’s hope it was heeded. And several bits of unidentifiable paper and plastic.

Our effusive thanks to Roland Sweet who clipped a recent Washington Post article on Davy Rothbart and his amazing Found Magazine. Davy doesn’t just pick up litter, he dives into dumpsters in search of the unusual, and publishes a magazine filled with his finds. The latest issue of Found focuses on the trash bins of criminals (!) and Davy has even been on tour reading aloud from his discoveries. “I try to read these notes with the energy and emotion they were written with,” he says. What an inspiration.

One sleeve for a Dream Glow necklace/bracelet that promises up to 6 hours of full glow, from ToyBox Unlimited in Indianola, Iowa, by way of China. A pad of sticky squares with “Tax Yr. 2003″ and a social security number (!) written on the first four sheets in blue ballpoint pen. One blue ballpoint pen. And a receipt from the Don Clark, Inc., Mobil station on Rt. 20 where someone gassed up for $70.67. I’m guessing it was not a hybrid.

Jen, Jen, Jen, what’s up with the styrofoam to-go container with your name on it torn into half a dozen pieces and strewn across three lawns on Genesee Street? On other streets, a Lipton Brisk Iced Tea can, the wrapper from a Quaker Chewy Low Fat Honey Nut bar, an orange Gatorade cap, the top of a Crayola crayons box promising “Vivid Colors,” the back of a temporary tattoo card, and several pieces of tape, foil and cellophane.

One Pepsi can; one swatch blue football jersey fabric; one Fla-Vor-Ice sleeve; one new, unbranded, sealed-in-its-fabric-pack tampon (probably a lost item as opposed to a littered item); and one Bauer Products key, number DR003.

An abundance of trash in Austin Park this afternoon, led by an empty plastic box that once held the singularly named Hit Mint, shiny white candies from Spain, made with sugar, carnauba wax and titanium dioxide. What a line-up: Carnauba wax made Tre-Wax the floor polish of choice in Basic Training, and the U.S. moon rocket, Saturn V, was painted with titanium dioxide. Yum! At the soccer field, a SoBe Green Tea glass bottle that would have spelled ER had the mower found it first, a Gatorade Fierce plastic bottle. On the pedestrian trail, a water bottle and sippy cup left in the grass, a Sierra Mist can, two styrofoam cups, and a dozen or so assorted scraps.

“It is a very queer thing, being ill, when you are not used to it. I suppose in the course of time, if one became really bed ridden, one would evolve ingenious methods of dealing with the difficulties of bed-life — one could have little nets everywhere, like in a wagon-lit, to keep things in and prevent them from getting lost, for at present everything either seems to fall on the floor or else become submerged under blankets and sheets. Also litter — what does one do about litter? My room is like Hampstead Heath after a Bank Holiday.”

– Vita Sackville-West in a letter to Virginia Woolf, August 22, 1929