— from Danielle Wheeler, ORS —
On Saturday, October 29, the first-ever fall Great Islands Clean-Up was held. 33 amazing volunteers on Orcas Island braved the rain and wind to collect 620+ pounds of trash from a total of 6.5 miles of road and 2 miles of beaches. Extra special thanks to the Orcas Island Environmental Club for your commitment to the cause, Island Hoppin’ Brewery for providing a space for our volunteer appreciation gathering, Joshua and Megan Tye for their donation of safety gear, San Juan Sanitation for garbage pick-up, Brook Meinhardt for drawing the event flyer, and to Island Market for donating warm beverages to keep us going.
Funding for island clean-ups is sponsored by a grant from the Department of Ecology through San Juan County Public Works. This means no donations from the Exchange Rebuild Project were used to subsidize this greening effort.
The next Great Islands Clean-up will happen in the spring on Earth Day, April 22, 2017. If you would like to help, please sign up to be a volunteer. You can also follow the Great Islands Clean-Up Facebook page. In the meantime, please be part of the solution and help to keep litter from beaches and roadways.
if I may make a simple suggestion: when we travel our particular roads, sometimes even once a day, it’s easy to see most of the side-road trash. Why not turn your hazzard lights on, get out of the car, and retrieve at least one visible piece of stuff. Just be careful on those little rises where you can’t see a car coming.
Crow Valley Rd has quite a bit of debris poking up here and there…