The Butte Environmental Council was one of many groups participating in California Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, which aims to pick up litter across the state’s coasts. The BEC focused its efforts on Big Chico Creek and Bidwell Park, with volunteers turning out in droves despite the heavy rain.
According to the Chico Enterprise-Record, 12 cubic feet of recyclable material was removed.
I support the efforts of the BEC. Even if I was skeptical of the environmental movement, I think nature is much nicer to look at when there aren’t empty Carl’s Jr. cups and Sierra Nevada bottles getting in the way. However, I don’t think one day out of the year is enough to cleanse this filth. I believe it should be the responsibility of residents year-round to throw their trash in the trash cans whenever necessary. (Hint: it’s always necessary.)
I think Chico State has a relatively nice, clean campus. However, when I venture downtown, I can’t help but think it feels a little…dirty. The sidewalks feel unclean, and while there are trash cans, I still see trash elsewhere. I don’t know if that’s just laziness or drunks confusing potted plants for trash cans, but there’s no excuse for throwing trash on the ground. It’s not healthy for the environment, it’s not healthy for Chico and it looks, for lack of a better word, trashy.
It’s even less excusable in Bidwell Park and the creek, which some residents seem to use as their personal dumping grounds. In one of the videos I watched of the Chico Cleanup event, I saw two BEC members pulling a whole mattress out of the creek. Really, there’s no municipal dumps that could have been tossed in? It had to go into the creek? I don’t care if you’re too lazy to find a place to throw it, the creek isn’t the place to do it.
Residents, if you have trash, please throw it in the nearest appropriate container you can find. Also, if you see trash on the ground, pick it up and find a place to throw it. We shouldn’t have to wait until September for other people to clean up others’ messes.
Nick Sestanovich can be reached at [email protected].
