My View of Life on the Dock
Yuck and double yuck, but very cool. Commissioner Ainsley Smith of Gloucester’s Clean City Commission shares a photo of cigarette butts collected in the City’s new Sidewalk Butlers. Initially, twenty butlers will be installed, mostly along Main and Rogers Street. The butlers were made possible by a grant from Keep America Beautiful.
Many thanks to Ainsley and fellow commissioners Eric Magers, Beverly Low, and Nick Iliades, and to all who are working so hard to keep Gloucester beautiful!
One thing is for certain, when Stage Fort is trash heaped, DPW will pick it up…but why does it have to be like this? Trash operations and picking up litter are expensive. National and state parks worldwide are taking out the trash cans rather than trash by instituting various carry in/carry out policies. Cape Ann is about as National Park worthy as any designation out there. I like
to extra underscore that the parking lot isn’t “out” enough. Marketing won’t help 100%. Despite anti-litter, Keep America Beautiful and green goals, we drop stuff. Especially if it’s convenient. The Law of Litter will prevail. If there are barrels we toss it in, then on, and too quickly around. Once any scrap meets ground, an overflowing heap isn’t far behind. It’s the psychology of litter: people are more likely to litter where there’s litter.
There are great DPW departments (like ours), policies in place in every community, and people who stop pollution (like Donna, Kim, Patty, Amy, and others here in Gloucester). I am amazed and grateful for just how cleaned up the beaches and parks are with every morning’s reset.
Gloucester offers options: DPW, barrels, carry in/carry out, volunteer clean ups and pooper scooper baggy dispensers. If it’s not enough, other options include allocating more funds to the DPW and police department via the municipal budget, entrance fees, and ‘take out/to go orders’ tax charge. Or us.
all photos: Stage Fort Park this morning (before DPW) photos by Pauline Bresnahan. thanks for sending to GMG, Pauline
They brought their own bags…
people start pollution people can stop it
Cat Ryan submits-
Hey Joey,
Whether you fall on the side of these commercials are a prime example of greenwashing, this is SUCH a landmark PSA, let’s make another parody, or hey wait a minute Iron Eyes Cody was Sicilian?—people of a certain age remember seeing the Ad Council’s Keep America Beautiful ads. Lassie and Lady Bird Johnson were helping the campaign, too. Wildflowers and THE dog.
I was a kid. This tv spot was memorable and effective.
And this one. William Conrad voice over.
The Rozalia Project lecture at Maritime Gloucester for the kick-off event of the first Harbor community clean up reminded me of these ads. In a positive way! Highways look better. Now on to our shoreline and ocean floors. There was a photo of a crab trying to maneuver past sunglasses and various beverage cans in Newport that specifically brought those commercials back to me. Oh, and check your toothpaste and skin polishers – no poly anything ingredient. Trust me.
The next day following that lecture, clean up happened all around the harbor, right at the water’s edge, different neighborhoods, and even by boat. Kudos to Maritime Gloucester for organizing and Harbortown and Rocky Neck Cultural Districts and other partners and volunteers.
At Maritime Gloucester, the Rozalia Project robot, Hector the Collector, went to work while Audie Tarr and others set out in boats for some surface retrieval. Gig Rowers in action, too.
Good Morning Gloucester 