MOUNT GILEAD — We all recently celebrated our moms, grannies, great grandmas, step moms, foster moms, pet moms, and those who have lost their moms. Any way you look at it, Mothers are an important part of our life.
Environmental Educators joined forces to make sure one very special mother was not left out this past Mother’s Day — our one and only, Mother Earth.
The group removed 18 (30-gallon) bags full of trash from the much littered tree line that is located between the Drug Mart/Auto Zone parking lot and Farmers Co-Op in Mount Gilead.
Morrow County Recycling/Keep Morrow County Beautiful Director, Lindsey Grimm coordinated the group’s clean-up efforts after an opportunity provided itself. Farmer’s CO-OP, Mount Gilead branch, wanted to help with Trash Bash 2020.
MEEC assists
They asked Grimm to locate a group who was willing to pick up litter.
“I had the perfect group in mind, MEEC (Morrow County Environmental Education Committee) a group of environmental educators who collaborate each spring to provide environmental education programming,” commented Grimm.
MEEC is active each spring when they join efforts to sponsor the Earth Day at the State Park, held on the second Tuesday of each May. The event is for all the second graders in the County. The daylong event is full of hands on educational learning stations and during lunch the group sponsors a featured event that focuses on the environment. The Farmer’s CO-OP donation is greatly appreciated and will help the group continue to provide educational programming next year, since the COVID-19 virus cancelled the 2020 event.
MEEC volunteers wanted to do something to help our community and make a difference. Removing 18 bags of litter was a great start along with being a much-needed community service. The group would like to remind shoppers to secure their plastic bags, receipts, lists, and even food containers.
We also found some litter that is COVID- 19 related, such as masks, gloves, hand sanitation wipes and empty bottles of hand sanitizer. One last reminder, cigarette butts are not bio-degradable! In fact, a cigarette butt can be found intact 5-10 years after the cigarette butt was littered. The core of most cigarette filters is made of plastics that very slowly degrade in our environment.
Please make a strong effort to place all items securely in a proper trash can.
It is often hard to make the connection of how litter in our local ditches and waterways can have a global impact, but it does. The first Earth Day brought unified attention to an environment in crisis. A local environmental movement is needed in Morrow County to bring attention to the nearly 15 tons of litter that is collected from our roadsides in a years’ time. Much of it is collected through volunteer groups and families.
Clean-up continues
You are invited to join the fight against litter by helping clean-up litter all around Morrow County.
Morrow County Recycling/Keep Morrow County Beautiful has been forced to conduct the annual Trash Bash a little differently this year due to COVID-19. By doing so, we are not seeing the nearly 1,000 volunteers that traditionally come out to help “spring clean” our ditches and public spaces.
This is a call to all citizens in Morrow County to join others in helping make a positive impact on our County’s environment. Trash Bash litter clean-up efforts will be encouraged until May 29. After this date, the vegetation growth is such that it makes it hard to truly clean the litter from the ditches and roadsides.
You can register or report your litter clean-up efforts by contacting the Morrow County Recycling/Keep Morrow County Beautiful office at 419-946-6400 or visiting their Facebook pages or visit their website at www.MorrowCountyOhio.gov.
