Photos of Spring 2013 Trash-Off 4/13 K.Agee
15 or 16
members from the West Garland Neighborhood Association met on Saturday morning 4/13/13 for this spring’s Trash-Off
event. This is Garland’s version of the statewide “Don’t Mess With Texas” trash collection event. We met at the Hollabaugh Rec Center parking lot and decided that of our
three targeted sites (two storm drains and the creek behind Walgreen’s), that
our time would be best spent at the Walgreens
site. Fyi, Ricardo and some youth volunteers are taking
care of the two storm drains, but in a separate event.
By the time
we were done, we had collected a pickup load (in trash bags supplied by the
sponsors) of trash. There seemed to be
three main causes for the litter: 1) shopping bags blown
by the wind down into the brush by the creek,
2) beverage bottles left behind
by young people using this area to test the mud-handling capabilities of their
vehicles, and 3) trash and bottles left
behind by homeless folks. We can’t do
much about the blowing litter, but a simple fix for the “teen hangout area”
would be to put a chain across the bridge that leads back to the isolated area,
and Robert Vera (District 6 Planning & Zoning Rep) took some pictures of
the homeless camps and will try to get other City departments involved.
As in the
past, Garland’s Trash-Off event was sponsored by a local non-profit group
called Keep Garland Beautiful (one of our members, Fran Brown is on the
board). They typically sponsor two of
the events per year. See their website www.KeepGarlandBeautiful.org
for details of their overall program.
Updated 4/19/13:
Robert Vera reported that Code Compliance will give the property owner
10 days to clean up the illegal dumping problem, where a big mound of trash had
been anonymously dropped off less than 100 feet from the creek. Its unfortunate that
they have to be responsible for someone else’s destruction, but someone has to
step up and fix the problem.