INSTEAD of considering a “universal garbage collection” that will involve the CNMI government — the islands’ most notorious delinquent debtor — concerned citizens may want to look into Pittsburgh’s “Litter League” competition. Like most things useful and beneficial, it’s an idea from people who are not politicians.
Litter League, according to The Wall Street Journal, is an “emerging sport”: competitive litter cleanups “in which teams vie to see who can pick up the most trash.”
One of the participants is Ed Wrenn, a retired medical doctor. The Wall Street Journal said he was starting to develop a strategy:
“ ‘If you want to win, go for the big stuff,’ Dr. Wrenn shouted as he picked his way along a wooded path near a precipice overlooking a freeway. Several deer looked on warily.
“Dr. Wrenn was wearing gloves and peering into dense clumps of vegetation. He carried a plastic bucket, rapidly filling up with beer-bottle shards, shredded grocery bags and crushed aluminum cans. Those were fine, but the real value was in heavier items, such as tires and the rusted metal frame of a piano he hoped to pry loose from the soil.”
In the states, litter-collecting contests are not new. The Wall Street Journal said they have been held for years in some places. Today, they are, well, picking up. “New ones started this year in Pittsburgh and Toledo. The efforts begin as part of programs for volunteers to help clean up their communities. Then, for some, things get competitive.”
Dr. Wrenn’s team is called the East End Trash Talkers, and they are competing with 10 other squads, the Journal reported. Besides glory, prizes include high-end backpacks. The winners will be announced on June 20.
“On a recent Saturday,” the Journal said, “Paul DeRosa, another member of the Trash Talkers, clutched a muddy toilet seat and part of a toilet water tank as he emerged from the Schenley Park woods. ‘This has got to add 10 or 15 pounds to our collection!’ said Mr. DeRosa, a corporate lawyer. ‘This is a mother lode.’ ”
It was Greg Manley, a community organizer, who founded the Pittsburgh league. The Journal said he got the idea during the lockdown last year.
“Starved for company and outdoor activities, he began going out with neighbors on weekly litter collections. Then he decided to make it into a game, boosting motivation.
“Mr. Manley made up rules on the fly. Early in the contest, Leslie Wright, a yoga instructor, spotted a patch of garlic mustard. ‘It’s invasive!’ she told other members of the Trash Talkers. ‘It’s trash!’
“Soon, however, Mr. Manley issued a clarification: Litter was to be defined as ‘manufactured loose waste.’ Plants and dead animals didn’t count.
“Aside from total volume, Mr. Manley is offering prizes in other areas, including a Yuck Challenge. Entries for that category include underwear and Mr. DeRosa’s toilet seat among other items.”
One of Litter League’s seasoned competitors is Lena Andrews. The Journal said she’s a member of the East Liberty Trash Warriors who won a trophy in a similar Pittsburgh competition, the Garbage Olympics, in 2017.
“If you get obsessed with picking up cigarette butts,” she told the Journal, “you’re going to lose because they’re not very big.” Her team, the Journal said, “picks up litter even in periods with no contests, but timing is important: ‘We try not to do a cleanup the month before the Olympics to let the litter build up.’ ”
In Rockbridge County, Virginia, the Journal said county officials have been running litter competitions since 2016. “The winning team gets the Litter Cup, a trophy featuring a miniature trash can perched on crushed cockroaches. The Trash Bashers, led by county employee Brandy Flint, have won the cup four times. One of Ms. Flint’s secrets is knowing some of the county’s most popular illegal dumping spots. In one secluded area several years ago, her team filled 48 trash bags and hauled out 63 tires and a sofa. To move the heavier items, the Trash Bashers rigged up a wheelbarrow, without the wheels, and connected it to a pulley. No other team came close that year.”
In March, however, “the Trash Bashers lost the trophy to a new team, the Litter Eliminators, led by Jenny Keel, a bluegrass musician. Her team found oil drums, traffic tickets and a bra along with the usual trash, filling a record 102 bags in eight days.”
The Journal said “Ms. Flint vows to return next year with a larger team. She relies heavily on nieces and nephews. ‘The kids participate without argument, without complaint,’ she said. ‘Well, I shouldn’t say without complaint.’ ”
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Journal said the city’s solid-waste department sponsors annual Junk Jogs. “Participants compete to see who can pick up the most litter while jogging or running. ‘It’s a real good workout,’ said Matthew Whelan, director of the department.”
Litter League and similar community-based initiatives remind me of what Alexis de Tocqueville noted in “Democracy in America” whose first volume was published 186 years ago: “Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.”
In the NMI when it was still part of the Trust Territory government administered by the U.S., local residents, including the youth, would band together to conduct cleanups on Managaha. This was before tourism became the islands’ main industry.
Marianas Variety reported in March 1972 how a youth squad “proceeded clockwise around [Managaha], picking up every can and bottle in sight; by the time [their boat] returned [to Saipan] at 3 p.m., most of [Managaha’s] trash was in one of the thirty-six 30-gallon trash bags that had been filled.”
In Nov. 1974, MV said there were two cleanup activities on Managaha involving Saipan dive club members, senior high school students and Explorer Scouts. “Overriden with rats, tangan-tangan, and rusted drink cans, the island was losing its appeal for weekend picnics….” One of the cleanup parties “hauled away over 150 bags of trash.” A cleaning committee was organized, MV reported, and its goal was to make monthly trips to Managaha to keep it “free of unsightly rubbish.”
In Oct. 1978, MV informed its readers about a cleanup activity at the Grotto involving “some 41 energetic and ecologically concerned Saipan residents” who “combined forces to eliminate the refuse allowed to collect at and distract from the natural beauty” of one of the island’s most frequently visited spots. “The volunteer sanitation engineers consisted of 17 scuba divers and 24 members of the Saipan Swim Club. The divers were divided into three groups, one for each cave under the surface where most of the debris settled.” The majority of the trash “was beer and soft drink cans, roofing tin, board and other rubbish….”
In Pittsburgh, The Wall Street Journal said, one hazard of competitive litter collecting is that onlookers may think the players are being punished — that they are performing community service.
In the NMI, people conducting cleanups remind everyone else that they should join the next one.
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