Category: Trash

Three Groups Cleaning up Their Communities and Parks

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The power of volunteering (during an event or during free hours) can make a huge difference in a community, especially in picking up trash. Below are three articles that describe the positive effect of picking up trash on both a environmentally and community level.

Article 1: First Dash for Trash in Ardmore is a clean sweep

A group of 140 individuals in Ardmore got together to pick up trash in a two-hour span. Towards the end, awards for different categories were given to teams who participate, like “most interesting piece of trash” and “most valuable piece of trash.” For their first annual trash pick-up, the teams managed to make their community cleaner, while still enjoy the experience.

Article 2: Lady Longhorns donate time to better their community

The United volleyball, Keep Laredo Beautiful, and the Longhorns’ volleyball programs teamed up together to clean up the Bartlett Park Soccer Complex on a Sunday. They laid out gravel pathways, planted plants, and picked up trash under four hours. Committing time and effort to make Laredo beautiful for generations to come, while having volunteers learn to give back to the community and respect the environment.

Article 3: Volunteers collect 3,000 pounds of trash on Coastal Cleanup Day

Over 700 volunteers picked up more than 3,000 pounds of trash from the 261 miles of land they covered in under 3 hours. Seventeen sites across the Erie County were cleaned up under that time. The program that they volunteered for is called Lake Erie International Coastal Cleanup, which has been going on for fifteen years.

After reading those articles, what can YOU do for your community to make it cleaner?

 

 

What type of trash are Pick’n Run solutions good for?

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When explaining the Pick’n Run concept, one of the first comments we get is that there is too much trash to pick up.  When they say this, they are envisioning a landfill amount of trash, which they think they have to pick up.

However, we are not focusing on finding a solution to pick up large piles of trash that you see in the picture above. There are other companies and solutions that will be able to focus on doing that.  Rather, we are initially focusing on helping runners pick up the odd trash pieces that you see on your runs, as you see in the picture below (which is trash we have picked up on one of our runs). The plastic cup. The beer bottle.

In addition, we aren’t focusing on the “nasty” trash that is gooey and yucky.  For the most part, the cups, the bottles, the candy wrappers are dry (we are developing gloves that people can use to pick up the trash, and put it in a Pick’n run backpack).

Trash Picking during a Run with my Running Buddy

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A few days before I left to Houghton, MI to continue my studies in mechanical engineering, I ran with a good friend of mine whom I made while in my high school cross country team. He and I ran about six miles, and during the run, I picked 34 pieces of trash (image below of the trash). The first few pieces of trash between miles 1 and 2.5 didn’t take up much space, but from there, I encountered many more pieces of trash to the point where I couldn’t pick up any more.

For only six miles, this is the most amount of trash that I have picked up so far in a run.

Article: Austin woman’s trashy Instagram captures spirit of ‘don’t mess with Texas’

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Have you ever seen an Instagram full of trashy photos? I mean, actual photos of trash that someone has picked up during their walk/hike/run? What started out as casually picking up pieces of trash during walks, turned into a mission of picking up trash for 365 days. Julie Sondecker uses her Instagram to post pictures of her trash finding to encourage people to take part in picking up trash when they go for a walk.

For more information about Julie’s action, visit this link: Austin Woman’s Trashy Instagram Captures Spriti of ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’

Picked up Trash during the Rocky Mountain Half-Marathon

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On August 12th, I got to run the Rocky Mountain Half-Marathon in Estes Park, Colorado while visiting my grandma and aunt. What makes this half marathon different from the other half marathon races I ran is that it is cup free; instead of using plastic cups of water or power drink to give to runners, each runner get to fill their own Hydropouch (that is provided with the registration) to fill up on water or a power drink, like in this image.

They want to promote on being green and not worry about trash being left in the park. I figured why not run with one of my prototype bags incase there is trash along the way. And sure enough, I found 4 pieces of trash and another Hydropouch between miles 5 and 9. I felt proud of picking them up and completing the race at 2:19:23 (which isn’t my personal record, but still felt proud). You can see the trash below, along with scenic photos I took during the race.

Article: Her Recycling Project Faced Long Odds in Lebanon. Still, She Persisted

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What do you do if your town is full of trash, was in the middle of a civil war, and has no support from the government? Do you quit or do you push on? Well for 81 year old Lebanese, Haji Im Nasser, she pushed on till changed happened. People began to volunteer cleaning up the trash, a warehouse was built to manage the trash and to store the sorted through trash, Nasser received a $29,000 grant from UN aid officials in Beirut for her project (a non-profit NGO called Nidaa al-Ard, or Call of the Earth), and the attitude of the people towards the environment changed. Click on the link below for the article:

Article: Her Recycling Project Faced Long Odds in Lebanon. Still, She Persisted

Fun fact, my mom’s side of the family are born in Lebanon. So reading an article that mentions Lebanon makes me think about my mom’s side of the family.

Article: Boston’s bid for zero waste: when less really is more

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Lately, I ran across an article in a Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine (June 19, 2017 version) about Boston’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and how cities are beginning to take the lead in becoming greener, even when the United States was pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Previous attempts have been made by other cities in becoming a zero carbon emission city, but have failed when trying to maintain the progress. Boston is learning the mistakes made by other cities and is understanding them to be able to not repeat them again. More information about this in the link below.

Article:Boston’s bid for zero waste: when less really is more

What can you do for your community to be green?

Video: How Nigeria is Dealing with its e-trash

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With technology improving, there’s bound to be an increase in e-trash along the way. With developing countries like Nigeria being bombarded with old electronics, most of them have come up with solutions to deal with them. Ifeanyi Ochonogor founded E-Terra Technologies Limited, a company in Nigeria that sorts through electronic parts, pick out components to be properly thrown away or sold for profit, and help clean up for their communities.

Not only are they preventing from any hazardous chemicals from getting into their soil and natural resources, but they are demonstrating to their community of taking action against trash.

Kalamazoo Klassic 5k, used second prototype bag

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On June 18, 2017, I ran the 39th annual Kalamazoo Klassic 5k (the Hill, the Will, the Thrill) with one of the Pick’n Run backpack – the second prototype. It is my second time running the 5k race, but is my first time to run it with the second prototype bag. Other times I would run with it during training.

During the race, I managed to pick up at least 11 pieces of trash off the street. Now also, I used the bag to put away 4 additional pieces of trash I made after eating two granola bars, and drinking a cup of gatorade and a bottle of fruit punch since there were no trash cans nearby. I knew that I could throw them away afterwards. Below are the photos of the trash I managed to pick up with the backpack in it:

 

 

 

Yosemite Half Marathon, used the backpack – prototype 1

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A month ago, my daughter (Naya), my sister (Betsy), and I ran the Yosemite Half Marathon.  It was the 1st half-marathon for my daughter (she did wonderfully), and the 4th half-marathon for my sister, and my 7th half-marathon.  My sister and I had run the Yosemite Half Marathon last year (when it was in October), and we wanted to run it again.

This time, I ran a race for the first time with one of the Pick’n Run backpack prototypes….the first prototype.  I have used the prototype on shorter, practice runs, but never in a race and not at the half marathon distance (13.1 miles).

I was able to pick up trash during the race, put it in the backpack, and then easily empty the trash at various trash locations, which tended to be at various mile markers.  See pictures below of the race, and the backpack usage.