Bring on the hand sanitizer! OMG.
Those of you who drive across the 520 Bridge that connects Seattle to its eastern suburbs know that when the mountain is out, you can get an absolutely astounding view from mid-span on the bridge. My husband and I walked out to the middle of the bridge to take a photo. On this sunny day, both Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier were out and the lake was covered with people on boats and jet skis, all enjoying a little freedom from our persistent 6 feet of isolation.
We’re gonna need a bigger bag
Then I looked down at my feet. Hmmm… trash. Not just any trash. PPE gloves. Since this was not a shoreline clean-up excursion, I did not have a collection bag or gloves with me. Live and learn.
Picking up used gloves with bare hands during a pandemic? Uh, no, I don’t think so. I stood staring at them wondering how to pick them up safely. My husband surprised me by magically pulling from his pocket a roll of dog poop bags. Yay!
He had five poop bags and we filled all of them, carefully turning them inside out to protect our hands. Evidently, our many years of picking up poop provided good practice.
We reached mid-span, took a photo of Mt. Rainier, and carried all this garbage back to the car. Thank goodness the car was stocked with hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes. This was seriously gross.
Well, how did it get there?
My question now is, how does all of this debris get dumped on the bridge? Are people chucking it out the car window at 60 mph? Are cyclists dumping it as they zoom by? Pedestrians, then? It’s a mystery.
Does this seem like a good place to dump used PPE? Foil food trays? Coffee cups? Plastic bottles? Straws? Foam insulation? Does the bridge look like a trash can? It spans a 200-foot-deep lake that is home to salmon, trout, bass, perch, sculpin, lamprey, I don’t know how many birds, and…wait for it…us. It’s part of our home too.
C’mon people, what the heck? We can do better than this!
Tips for you
- If you want to join the cleanup, bring a bag and don’t forget a pair of gloves! It is garbage, after all. 🙂
- If you find hypodermic needles or any other dangerous objects, it is up to you to decide if you want to pick them up. That choice is entirely yours. If you do, please be exceedingly careful – use a trash picker/grabber so you don’t have to touch them and a sharps disposal container to isolate them.
- Share pictures of what you collect on social media, tag @PugetSoundkeeper with the hashtag #PSKVirtualCleanup. They will happily repost to show off your good work to the larger community.
Go Deeper!
Go Deeper to explore the ocean and the Salish Sea through a curated list of articles, books, films, and other resources.
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