This week’s Tuesday Tip, pick up trash at your local park or favorite camp site. It often blows my mind how an entire bag of fast food can end up on the ground at my favorite campground. People should feel privileged to experience the great outdoors instead of trashing it. This weekend while camping, my husband and I walked around the camp site and picked up a small bag of trash. I felt like the little bit we did was good for the park.
Tip #25: Make it a challenge; pick up 20 pieces of garbage at your favorite outdoor hang-out.
Technically, picking up trash doesn’t equal monetary savings…. However, it could in the future.
- Keep our parks clean. The cleaner our parks are kept, the longer they’ll be accessible to the future generations. I don’t have kids (yet), but I do see the value in preserving our parks and forests for future generations to enjoy. Picking up trash and placing it in the dumpster is a simple step towards cleaner parks.
- Keep our park fees low. Just think, if we all dropped our trash on the ground and didn’t pick up after ourselves, more park rangers and maintenance people would need to be hired. While this may be good for the economy, park budgets are usually the first to be “cut” out of the budget (so no new jobs are formed.) Making up for this expense would either mean closing the park or raising the entrance or camp site fees. I don’t know about you, but I’m already paying $20 a night to camp at my favorite site!
- Use this as an inexpensive exercise activity or game. Keep the kids moving and make trash pick-up a game. Of course, you might want to set some safety rules before you begin; like don’t pick up sharp objects, glass, or toilet paper – that still leaves plenty of things they can pick up, like bottle caps and candy wrappers! The first one to collect 20 trash items gets to choose dessert (or something to that effect!)
A clean environment is a healthier environment.
- One less plastic bag or chip bag is better for the environment. Instead of watching the refuse flow down the stream only to get caught up in a tree branch, make it one less item that will become a catch-all for garbage.
Have you tried picking up trash at your local park? Do you think if everyone did this, our forests and national parks would be a cleaner, safer place for everyone?
4 Comments
I loved cleaning up roads and beaches when I was a kid – it just felt like I was doing a job like an adult would. Now that I’m an adult, I resent the fact other adults threw the trash there to start with (but I still pick up whatever I see…I just complain more while I do it…). 🙂
@Budgeting in the Fun Stuff – I complain about it as well. It’s pretty astonishing what people will throw on the ground and just not pick up!
@Money Reasons – I agree that people should pick up the litter in front of their homes. If everyone did this, including businesses, there would be way less litter around the cities! As for picking up trash around camp grounds and parks, I think that because I want to continue enjoying them, it motivates me to do my part. Who knows, maybe that action will inspire others to do the same!
I’m good at cleaning up my street and yard, but if it’s not on my street, I usually let it lay.
I know it sucks that some jerk through out the litter to begin with, but I think the owners (or renter) should still pick up the trash in their yard, or directly in front of their house.
I’ll usually begrudgingly pick up trash in such areas, but only in my area. Kudos to you for going that extra mile (literally) 🙂
@Everyday Tips – I didn’t think about the CRV on the cans and bottles, but now that you mention it we only picked up one bottle in our little garbage collecting walk. We see lots of people combing the streets of our city looking for cans and bottles, it really does help with the litter.