Social Distancing, The Real Deal

50 years of Earth Day, 50 years of picking up trash.  I decided it was a good day to clean the ditches along Burns Road since the city's reservoir is directly downstream.  Much Styrofoam and a fair amount of battery acid won't be in our drinking water this summer.  Unlike the first Earth Day in 1970, John wasn't with me as he was on Bliss Street when our neighbor, Gary, took this photo.

On other days I've transferred quite a bit of garbage from streets in Collegetown to the porches and yards of student rentals; retrieved the contents of three recycling bins that tipped over at Hospicare in one of the many wind storms we've had this spring, and cleaned up a truckload of junk, including an empty piggy bank that symbolized so much, from a campsite in Six Mile Creek that was abandoned by a young, homeless woman last fall.  The piggy bank is the yellow object on top, I kept it, anyone short of tarps can go help themselves.

This is my second time at this spot in the last six months.  When the water was low last fall I got all the trash thrown off the bridge and from the luxury apartment house on the corner of Hudson and Aurora.  Over the winter more than necessary got thrown down there again, and this spring a Lime Bike.  The company pulled up stakes and laid off their one employee in town and Bike Walk Tompkins didn't offer any indication that they would get the bike out before a flood took it and its battery downstream.  I was up for a challenge so using the rope I got at that very spot last fall, put a hook on the end and was able to haul up the bike.  An occupant of the house above came out and told me the landlord didn't want anyone on the property, it's questionable whether I was on it or not, but I told her to let him know he could clean it up next time to be assured I won't trespass. Interestingly, there was a suitcase full of clothes last fall too.

I don't mind being called a dirty do-gooder.