47 people turn out to clean area of Elder Mill Covered Bridge Saturday morning
The weather was near perfect Saturday morning for a large contingent of people to perform the back breaking work of picking up a sadly amazing amount of garbage both on the sides of Elder Mill Road and in both branches of Rose Creek in far southern Oconee County, thanks to organizer Melissa Steele.
The fine folks of Antioch Church allowed us to gather in their fellowship hall and hear from Steele as well as people from the Altamaha Riverkeeper and locals organizing a forum later in the month. After signing a waiver and receiving instructions, we headed out to pick up garbage. It was astonishing the amount of crap people carelessly toss out the window of their passing vehicles. We found coolers, tires, bottles and cans of every kind, large pieces of metal and the requisite cigarette wrappers and coffee cups. We filled up two large black plastic garbage bags, one with recyclables and others with generic trash of the un-recyclable variety.
Equally astonishing is the fact that some people did not want or did not give permission to Steele for us to wander on their property and remove refuse. In some instances, especially near the church on Antioch Church Road, that did not stop the small army of volunteers from picking up litter.
Why is is any easier to toss out garbage instead of taking the extra effort to throw things away where they belong? While I am sure there are people I am forgetting to thank, I wish to give proper acknowledgment to area homeowners Pat Adams, John Berry and John English for allowing us access to their property. There is a buttload of property near the Covered Bridge for sale and well worthy of purchase by our Board of Commissioners for a park.
Other people I knew and saw included a large contingent of Girl Scouts, Jonathan Veit, Kate McDaniel and Robert Wyatt. I finally met Ian Giles and had our photo taken by Blake Giles of the Oconee Enterprise newspaper. It was just hot enough to work up a good lather walking the mile or so we did down the side of the road. I can only hope the people in the water were equally successful in their efforts.
The fine folks of Antioch Church allowed us to gather in their fellowship hall and hear from Steele as well as people from the Altamaha Riverkeeper and locals organizing a forum later in the month. After signing a waiver and receiving instructions, we headed out to pick up garbage. It was astonishing the amount of crap people carelessly toss out the window of their passing vehicles. We found coolers, tires, bottles and cans of every kind, large pieces of metal and the requisite cigarette wrappers and coffee cups. We filled up two large black plastic garbage bags, one with recyclables and others with generic trash of the un-recyclable variety.
Equally astonishing is the fact that some people did not want or did not give permission to Steele for us to wander on their property and remove refuse. In some instances, especially near the church on Antioch Church Road, that did not stop the small army of volunteers from picking up litter.
Why is is any easier to toss out garbage instead of taking the extra effort to throw things away where they belong? While I am sure there are people I am forgetting to thank, I wish to give proper acknowledgment to area homeowners Pat Adams, John Berry and John English for allowing us access to their property. There is a buttload of property near the Covered Bridge for sale and well worthy of purchase by our Board of Commissioners for a park.
Other people I knew and saw included a large contingent of Girl Scouts, Jonathan Veit, Kate McDaniel and Robert Wyatt. I finally met Ian Giles and had our photo taken by Blake Giles of the Oconee Enterprise newspaper. It was just hot enough to work up a good lather walking the mile or so we did down the side of the road. I can only hope the people in the water were equally successful in their efforts.
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