Many hands make light work in weekend long cleanup event
Some helpers that got trash off the street and in the bin. Source: Joey Still
The crew who helped clean Swifts Beach.
Members of the Church of the Good Shepherd lent a helping hand.
In environmentalist fashion, the Wareham Land Trust was out there too.
One crew out on the side of the road.
Some helpers that got trash off the street and in the bin. Source: Joey Still
The crew who helped clean Swifts Beach.
Members of the Church of the Good Shepherd lent a helping hand.
In environmentalist fashion, the Wareham Land Trust was out there too.
One crew out on the side of the road.
There was a mad dash for trash across Wareham as over one hundred people spent two days picking up garbage big and small.
Don’t Trash Wareham is a town wide clean-up event that took place both Saturday, Oct. 4 and Sunday, Oct. 5. Organizer and Select Board member Joey Still said his first time running the event has been a success considering how many people came out, and how much trash has been picked up.
“We’ve seen a lot of different people from every part of town come out and want to do it,” Still said. “There’s people that didn’t necessarily know about the event and saw us hanging out in front of Town Hall and wanted to clean up some trash.”
Still said about 150 people came out across the two days and filled around 250 trash bags with a variety of things. He added nips were the most common, despite not being sold in Wareham.
“We’ve seen a lot of nip bottles in the areas where you’re closer to the borders with Rochester or Bourne,” he said. “Nips are not sold in Wareham but you see them more near borders which tells me people are throwing them on Wareham property which I don’t like to see.”
Second only to nips were containers for zyns, a tobacco free nicotine pouch, and cigarette butts.
Some places in town Still pointed out as having the most trash were Doty Street and Charlotte Furnace Road, which Still and the cleanup group he founded Wareham Clean and Green cleaned just a few months ago.
But one of the more surprising places trash had been piled up was at Swift’s Beach, he said.
“We found a shopping cart, buoys, wire wrapped around a dead bird, all this stuff is just crazy to me,” he said. “I don’t get it, there was more trash at Swift’s Beach than there was in Onset.”
To help deter litter in the future, Still said the town has purchased trail cameras that will be set up around Wareham to catch people dumping trash.
“There is going to be more notoriety on the whole conversation around trash,” he said. “Now we’re going to be able to find these people with these cameras.”
Don’t Trash Wareham has been around since 2015 but the event is yet to reach its pre-pandemic popularity and Still said he is aiming to keep the event growing.
“Don’t Trash Wareham got to a point where you throw the name out and people know about it.” he said. “I think this is a great start to keep them going.”
