The End of the Blog

I started this blog in the spring of 2015.  I was fairly new to living in downtown Minneapolis.  I had gotten rid of my car and was adapting to the car-less lifestyle, finding pleasure in walking along the Mississippi River trails and learning the bus system.  But I remember how disgusted I felt when I saw all the trash floating along the river's edge.  Why wasn't the city doing something about it? Whose responsibility was it?  The first time I took a garbage bag out to pick up trash along the river I remember feeling slightly embarrassed that I was doing this work.  Keep it to a weekday and maybe no one would notice me.  I remember that first year I was working along the river just north of the Hennepin Bridge, two police officers approached me and asked me what I was doing and had I seen anything suspicious that I might like to report.  I hated that feeling that the park is supposed to a dangerous place.  And so I started to write about my "just taking a walk and picking up some trash" adventure.  And today I end my blog, not the walking or the picking up trash part, just the writing about it.  This last picture I include was taken a few weeks back just south of Bassett Creek.  I've spent a lot of time on this beach picking up trash but it was overtaken by homeless campers in the summer.  It started out with one tent pitched way too close to the water's edge and by now that tent has got to be flooded out.  Later, another tenter arrived and in early September there were seven or eight so I took my trash collection efforts to the other side of the creek.  The campers are mostly gone but the mess remained.  I haven't walked back through the area and I suppose Park and Rec could have been notified to clean it up.  I think Minneapolis has its hands full right now with the giant homeless camp that bloomed along highway 55 and the Cedar Avenue exit this summer to pay much attention to this one.  I've not gotten involved with the homeless issue, just trying to help out when folks abandon their camp and help restore it to its natural state. So on the positive side, what else have I discovered with this picking up trash adventure?  First, you can get to a heck of a lot of parks in the Twin Cities using public transportation.  Second, I have developed a new interest in identifying the beautiful wildflowers that I see along the trails.  And lastly I think that there is an absolute positive mental and physical health benefit that occurs while walking in nature.  So, I'll keep exploring the excellent park system we have in the Twin Cities and also take a bag with me to do my small part in keeping the parks looking great.

Wet Clothes and Waders

 The journey of this pair of waders started about two weeks ago on Fisherman's Point on the north bank of Bassett Creek where the creek meets the Mississippi River.  I was so tempted to take these hip waders home. They would definitely fit me.  Think of all the trash one could haul in by just being able to wade out a few feet in the river.   I came to my senses and left them.

On the south side of Bassett Creek, I had been waiting patiently for the river to go down so I could haul in this pile of clothes that had been snagged on a tree branch for the last many months.  When I finally dragged them out they must have weighed about 80 pounds.  I left them for a few hours hoping they would perhaps dry out a little and be easier to manage. There is still a tent including poles that is partially submerged and hopelessly tangled around a tree stump.  Someday I'll try to hack it out of there.

Later in the day I hauled the clothes up to the top of the new stairs that were built last fall.  I didn't have the energy to continue on to the trash can so I just left them.  There used to be a trash can closer to this location but Park and Rec has not put out yet.  I figured the maintenance folks would see my pile soon enough.  When I walked by a few days later the clothes were gone.  I continued up river to see about those waders.  Gone too.

Further up stream along the stretch, as always, there was lots to pick up.  And quite a few shoes.  I started to count them just for something to do.  There were the lone flip flops, the boot, the white shoe, the loafer.  Maybe 12 in total.

A few days later I was picking up trash again just south of Bassett Creek on a hidden beach I call Middle Beach.  There were those waders again and yet another mess of clothes in the muck.  I hauled some of them out.  So now the waders are mine, all mine I thought to myself.

Fast forward to this morning.  Fueled by coffee and cookies I stuffed those waders with sticks and stones so they can stand up by themselves.  Add a nice but dirty XL Columbia Jacket with a channel 9 news logo on it.  Create a makeshift head with materials on hand.  Now I just need a hat and a pair of sunglasses.  I'll have no trouble finding those sometime soon and who knows maybe someone else will add to my creation.

Safe disposal of Drug Needles in our Parks

I never know what I'm going to find when I do a trash walk along the river. That's a single dose vial of Naloxone, the drug that can save the life of a person who is experiencing a heroin drug overdose.  I picked it up along the river at the sitting area across from the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Minneapolis. The good news is that perhaps someone had a second chance at getting out from this terrible epidemic. I wonder how available this drug is to the general public.  Do you need a prescription for it?  Could a family member get it easily?  How expensive is it?

http://time.com/5229870/naloxone-surgeon-general-cost-where-buy/

I picked this needle up yesterday at the beach on the north side (Fisherman's Point) of Bassett Creek.  I've been out trash walking maybe 12 times this spring and I think this is my fourth or fifth needle that I've picked up.  I always place them inside an empty plastic bottle and dispose of in the trash.  So some cities are starting to put up needle disposal boxes in parks where they have a problem.  Is it time for Minneapolis Park and Rec to think about doing the same?  I would use a needle container to drop off the ones I find and maybe it would give the city an indication of how many are found.  And we need to remember that our parks are widely used by all sorts of people including folks who bring their 5 year old down to the river to learn how to skip stones. I guarantee you that kid is going to pick up that needle.

 http://www.sfexaminer.com/sf-lawmaker-calls-needle-disposal-boxes-public-parks/

https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/22/portland-adds-needle-disposal-boxes-in-some-city-parks-as-heroin-crisis-continues/ 

Feeling Lucky

I met this man today.  Albert from Fridley or "Lucky" as he said to call him.  A complete stranger and he was willing to wade out in the muck and haul in that tire that's been sitting at the entrance to Bassett Creek for as long as I have lived in downtown.  I didn't ask him directly to go get the tire, but I did put the thought in his head.  What happened was this.  I was on day four of picking up trash along the Mississippi River.  Lucky was quietly fishing when I snuck up on him with my trash bag. To backtrack a bit, I'd been working the beaches on both sides of Bassett Creek and further up river to the water ski area.  Yesterday, day three, I was here where Lucky is standing. I call this spot Fisherman's Point.

On day three, I filled those six Target bags twice over, depositing the junk in the Park and Rec barrel and heading back down the path to refill. What a mess.

That tire out there in the creek was bugging me, but seriously there was nothing I could do about it personally.  Today I was intending to hit another beach but thought I would just do one more sweep of this area.  That's when I met Lucky.  Fishermen are usually in their own quiet zone of contemplation and I apologize for butting into that moment.  We discovered we both had lived in the state of Mississippi years ago and I told him about the cleanup project that is taking place on the Pearl River that runs through Jackson.  Before I knew it he was offering to wade out there and get that tire and roll it up to the parking lot a few hundred feet away.  By the time we got up there he was a muddy mess but I wanted to shake his hand anyway.

We left the tire by Biff's house.  I called Park and Rec to tell them to come and get it.  I tried to move it a little for a better photo op, but couldn't budge it even just a smidge.  The rim was still on it and it was caked with mud.  Lucky and I parted ways.  He was headed back down to the river and I continued on to my next cleanup spot.  Park and Rec had that tire out of there an hour later.  It was definitely my lucky day.

Two Days, Five Hours

Hello little piece of trash.  You made my day.  I was out picking up trash over the last several days.  Two days exactly and about five hours of work in total.  What can one person accomplish in that time?  Both days I walked the 1 mile West River Parkway route between Hennepin and Plymouth Bridges.

I barely got this sofa cushion stuffed in the park and rec trash barrel.  Onward to First Bridge Beach where a mom and her teenage son were camping.  I tried to pick up around their tent and be as quiet as I could, but you know I've got work to do and it's ten o'clock in the morning.  I should have recommended to them, if they have to sleep out another night, a place a little further up river that is more private with a water fountain and a bathroom.

On June 1st the City of Minneapolis was supposed to start a ban on plastic bags but at the last minute the state overruled it citing it would be problematic for the city to have different rules than the state.
http://www.startribune.com/state-legislature-blocks-plastic-bag-ban-in-minneapolis/425517333/
 The city, by the way, has banned Styrofoam takeout containers and that seems to be working fine.  Anyway, I have mixed feelings about plastic bags because I do use the plastic bags I get at the downtown Target.  I figure that I use each Target bag 2 to 3 times when I am picking up trash before they just get too filthy.

So in five hours I can pick up about a dozen bags of trash.

Bassett Creek has really been stinky this week.  There were probably a dozen or so rotting fish, several other dead animals, and one old dried out muskrat carcass that was as hard as leather.  I was reading an article recently about fireworks disrupting fish and wildlife and it is that time of the year.  We do love our fireworks here.  But the fish are most likely Common Carp and unwanted by the fishermen who just caught them and they get left behind on the bank of the creek.  Like bait, I'm guessing the DNR would prefer that they go in the trash can.

This last month I have been following a facebook group called Take2Miss.  You might think that the name refers to the river, but it is actually the state of Mississippi and specifically a litter problem along the Pearl River.  Like our Mississippi River, the Pearl River is the water source for a part of their state and also empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  And they have a litter problem.  They are planning a large cleanup of all 444 miles of that river this coming September.  So let's see, people on both sides of the river, double that, can one person work all day, no, not likely.....do they need 800 people to truly clean it up?  That's a massive undertaking.  Do they have tires and other large items that will need to come out. More likely it will need to be a yearly project. The importance of this group and the photos of trash is that it documents what a shit show their natural spaces have become.  See for yourself. http://www.take2miss.com/take2miss.html

So good luck folks.  Wish I could join you down there in Mississippi this September.

Canoeing in the Creek

Bassett Creek was not in the best shape today.  With the recent rains some stuff got flushed out of the tunnel.  At first I thought someone was exploring the underground tunnel that goes a mile or so through downtown, but then I realized no one was in that boat.  The boat registration is there in the front and the name is partially readable. Is that SS Mustard Gas or SS Mustang Sally.  Anyways it's not in the best of shape.  That's an old refrigerator door floating in all the debris.

With the tree that went down last July this once scenic view will not be included in anyone's prom or wedding photo shoot any time soon.  There are several large pieces of Styrofoam floating in the mix and I took one out and broke it down for the trash barrel, but that's all I could reach.

A week or two ago I was picking up some trash on this same route and was surprised by how clean it looked.  When I got home I saw a Facebook post about a group of volunteers who had just picked up a couple dozen bags of trash that same morning. I think those volunteers came from several of the restaurants in the North Loop neighborhood.  I must have been right behind them but never ran into them.  In any case I know old broken glass can always be found around the creek if you know where to look so I worked on that.

I did manage to find this old garbage disposal in the weeds.  That thing is heavier than it looks.

 

Paranoid in Bassett Creek

Goodbye Panda Paranoid Wall.  It started out as just two eyeballs and the word paranoid.  That was many months ago.  Then the eyeballs became the the Panda face.  Then the messages starting to appear. I did enjoy reading those messages:  "Stand for something or you'll fall for everything" and "we sat on the side of the hill as we were not allowed into the fairy garden".

Last winter the wall was just a big ugly thing with peeling white paint until the eyeballs appeared.

I was picking up trash along Bassett Creek recently and realized the thing was painted over.  First, I thought ok, great. I like that brown better than the white.

But it's not really finished. The white walls that did not have any graffiti were not painted.  So now, well, it just looks stupid.

Painting over graffiti almost seems like a waste of time and resources when you keep having to repeat the same task.  I think there is a better way to deal with this kind of stuff.  We have a thriving arts community in Minneapolis who could probably come up with some interesting ideas to fix this problem and make areas like this much more pleasant.

Bassett Creek Bottles

A few days ago I was picking up trash north of the Plymouth Bridge.  On my way home I crossed one of the bridges at Bassett Creek.  A group of kayakers were heading into the creek towards the conduit opening. As I watched them I realized that a tree was covering the entrance.  I walked over to have a closer look.

Just another storm and another downed tree in the park, but this one will be a little more difficult to clean up.

The root ball of that tree was sticking up and I could see glass shining in the hole that was created.  Years ago the creek was used as a place to dump trash so it's no surprise that there is junk down there.  The tree had just been growing on top of it all.

Most of what was visible was broken, but there were a few intact glass bottles just laying there.

I took the unbroken ones home and cleaned them up.  The taller bottle (5.5 inches) is an old Listerine bottle (Lambert Pharmacal Company) probably from the 1920's or 30's or so some folks on ebay say.  The wide short bottle in the back says Carter's 723 on the bottom and would have been an ink bottle.  The tiny cobalt bottle says Emerson Drug Company Baltimore and would have contained a headache (hangover) remedy of bromo seltzer.  The last bottle on the left says Devoe Raynolds Company 2oz and most likely contained paint.  Well, it's not worth much but it was fun to find it.

By the way, the real treasure right now in the creek is all the Jewelweed (Spotted Touch Me Nots) that are blooming along the trail.

What's this blog about anyway?

I've been blogging about picking up trash now for about 15 months.  Seriously, I never thought it would hold my attention for this long.  The blogger site allows me to see how many folks look at each of my posts and what country viewers come from.  Although most people reading my blog are from the USA, about 25% are from other places around the world.  How do they find this site or is it mostly by accident?  When I started this blog it took me about 30 seconds to decide on the name Trash Talk, not really considering that someone might be looking for porn or sports.  So if you're looking for porn or sports talk I probably haven't said much about those topics.  I will tell you that I occasionally pick up used condoms in the park (usually with a stick and gloves of course).  In fact, I picked up one yesterday by a park bench.  There was another one on the bridge today as I was walking across the river to attend the Polish Festival.  I didn't pick that one up.  Really, on the bridge people?  So back to my real topic about litter....and that quilt.  I was out yesterday walking to my usual places along the river.  I found this patchwork quilt.  It was wet and dirty and all balled up under some brush near Middle Beach.  I picked up the litter around the quilt and then shook the thing out and layed it flat to dry. I thought about that quilt and wondered about the story that brought it here.   Most likely it involves someone (she) who didn't expect to find herself suddenly homeless and spending the night down by the river.  But there is also someone who fashioned that quilt with not a lot of fancy needle work but with love and caring nonetheless.  I left it there to dry and maybe someone will come back to claim it.  It just needs a good cleaning.

In Minnesota, the Department of Natural Resources Adopt a River program requests us volunteers to estimate by weight what we have picked up during the year so they can combine it with all volunteer's efforts.  I take a picture of almost everything I pickup because it gives me a visual record and makes it easier to make a wild ass guess at the end of the year. At First Bridge Park yesterday there was leftover fishing litter as well as stuff from folks sleeping out.

Over at Middle Beach there was lots of trash that had washed up from all the rains we have had.  Who is splitting wood down there at the beach?  Several months ago, probably on a rainy, cold spring day, I got the idea that I would return some of my trash finds back to the wild in the form of trash mobiles.  Were some folks amused (I hope) or am I just another litterer. There were five of them and I think most of them have disappeared now.  Bye Bye.  It was fun.

I walked as far as the beach on the north side of Bassett Creek.  I barely got started there before I was out of bags.  One thing I have come to know about people who litter along the Mississippi River is that they prefer crappy beer. 

So, Trash Talk isn't just about picking up crap, it is also about finding and learning about what is out there in nature.  This is fast becoming my favorite part of this whole thing.  I came across this little blue flower yesterday along Bassett Creek.  Fairly tiny and low growing, I saw this by the bridge that goes over the creek on the north side.  According to the Minnesota Wildflower site I've been using, I am fairly certain it is a Dayflower. 

Growing next to the Dayflowers was also a patch of Bur Cucumber Vines. I don't have a fancy camera and it has been a learning experience trying to figure out what I can do with the camera that I have. I have learned that white flowers are really hard to photograph.  Sitting in the dirt trying to get a picture of this flower must have looked odd to the bikers and runners who passed me by on the trail.  Hey, I just mentioned sports!

I have to say that I got some of my inspiration for this blog from something I saw on the internet a couple years ago about a guy who picked up trash on his way to work somewhere in Denmark or maybe Finland.  Anyway, I suspect that we people around the world all have the same problem with just too much garbage everywhere. 

Thank you Minneapolis Park and Rec

I just have to say a big thank you to Minneapolis Park and Rec.  Sunday morning I was working on my "adopt a river" mile and noticed this new trash barrel.  I was going to take a photo, but there was a homeless man sleeping on the bench so I had to come back after he had left it.  This is the bench that I wrote about in my blog last December the 15th.  This is the bench with the nice overlook of the river at the mouth of Bassett Creek. It's also a good spot to hide and have a drink or two and a nap and it's also the place where a lot of folks pitch their trash down the hill.   When I first started picking up trash last spring, I came across a couple of guys on this bench and my first thought was I just better get out of there.  One of the guys turned around and looked at me.  A native american guy, he was definitely drinking, but when I looked at his eyes I thought this man is really ill.  Unexpectedly, he just said "thank you so much for cleaning up".  Recently I met a guy here who started up a conversation with me. He thanked me for picking up trash and said "Don't think that what you are doing goes unnoticed".  And then he asked me if I knew why people leave their trash here.  I knew what he thought was the answer and so I said "yes, it's because there is no trash barrel here".  He agreed.  He also told me that people like to drink here because they want to hide from the police and not be hassled.  I noticed he had his backpack chained and locked to his waist.  I wondered if he was homeless.  He said many of the homeless guys are chronic alcoholics and are just looking for a place to hide away from people who might take advantage of them.  This path isn't as isolated as that guy thinks.  I see all sorts of people here, dog walkers, grandma with the grand kids, runners, and park and rec police patrolling on bikes. The barrel will help I think.  It was half full of trash already when I walked by the second time that morning.  So thank you Park and Rec.

Starting the New Year

It's time to start some trash clean up.  It's still winter technically but I can feel spring is just around the corner. I was out a couple times during the past week.  I took a survey of my mile from the Hennepin Avenue Bridge to the Plymouth Bridge.  Yes, somebody has been under the bridge drinking so I picked that junk up.

This is new.  Someone is storing their stuff along the river.  Neat as a pin.  Hope the spring floods don't wash all that stuff down river. 

Here's a sight I've seen a half dozen times before in this exact location.  Whole Foods bag, whole roasted chicken tray.  Yum. A picnic.  The receipt says that you also enjoyed barbecue potato chips.  I love barbecue potato chips especially with a Dr. Pepper but I don't leave my trash after I finish consuming them. 

That snag I was working on last fall has all sorts of new stuff that is stuck there.  See you next fall when the water level is lower.

Bassett Creek is looking nice.  I can see that there is some trash that is frozen into the ice.  I expected that.

I saw a nice clean bag from Bobby and Steve's Auto World hanging from a shrub so I used it to pick up some stuff.  While I use many bags that I find to pick up trash I usually bring a few from home, ones that I mostly get from Target.  Some city council members are proposing a single-use plastic bag ban because they screw up the recycling sorting machines.  We have one sort recycling in Minneapolis so we don't have to separate our recyclables by type but I guess those plastic bags are a problem.  According to a recent article in The Journal (journalmpls.com) there are more than 160 cities in the US who have already done this.  I wonder if the guy who loves the Whole Foods chicken would pay extra for the paper bag.