2011 Avening and Glencairn Cleanups.... NOT!

I haven't been to Avening or Glencairn parks much this year and hadn't done any cleaning so I decided last week to check out he status of the 2 parks. Below is the results, what a contrast.

Avening
This park is always a dream to clean. It is maintained by the community and they have people that care. I haven't  cleaned this park since last year and was impressed with how little garbage there was. After going through the entire maintained area I only ended up with a very small amount of garbage. It was hard to even find a cigarette butt ;) This community should be proud of their park, it is very nice.

This as all the garbage I found in the entire park. Next to nothing ;)

This is Avening park. One of the cleanest parks around.

Glencairn

And now for the other side...

This park is not maintained at all or at least not regularly. Like Avening I haven't cleaned this park since last year(cleaned both parks on same day). What a mess. If you read previous years entries on this park you will remember I already removed over 10 tires from the woods and water. Guess what.... there are now 6 more tires in the water and garbage throughout the park. I was so frustrated I just took pictures and left. I spent so much time to keep that park clean and it was destroyed by only a few people. Here are some pictures of the crap that is everywhere... Keep in mind this just shows the big stuff, there are a lot of cigarette butts and beer bottle tops as well...

Might be able to excuse this junk. It was at least in the fire pit.

 Tire #1

 Tire#2

 Tire #3 & 4

 Actually quite a solid table. would be great for putting heavy plants on in a greenhouse.

 Part of a tent just thrown in the woods.

 Very large plastic tarp stuffed away.

 Somebody decided to create their own firepit.

 This is what virtually the whole property looks like now... garbage everywhere ;(

 Tire#5

 Tire#6

 Lots of hidden garbage around every corner.

 Even the small beach is a mess.

 If I had a truck I would have taken this table. Looks in great shape.

 Some kid is looking for their chair right now ;(

 Just more crap in the woods.

Cleanups Update Sept 2010

Well the summer was going along great and both Avening and Glencairn parks seemed to be very easy to maintain this year... Until mid August then the only party this year was held. They cleaned up all the beer bottles and cans(they are worth money) and at least a lot of the garbage. Unfortunately the park was at a level where there was hardly a speck of garbage. Just the bottle caps from way over 100 beer were a pain to pick up. I have really come to hate the labels on beer bottles. Why does everyone tear them off then rip them into little pieces and throw them on the ground. Then the cigarrett butts of course and a bunch of other tiny peices of garbage. Although there only ended up being 5 small bags of garbage each bag is full of hundreds of small pieces of garbage. I am happy to say that Glencairn is almost back into shape... I ran out of garbage bags so there are a few pieces left to cleanup... and of course there will always be tomorrow.

I did a little experiment of my own after the party... I did not clean the park up intentionally. Why? When I go to the park and am cleaning I run into people and many proceed to tell me how they clean the park all the time as well. So I thought I would give them the chance... Plus there is a group from the community that publishes that they maintain the park so I figured surely these people could at least pick up the bigger garbage that was left before I do the rest... Of course I was dreaming, I new that ;) .... After 3.5 weeks I couldn't stand it anymore and cleaned the park a few days ago. Not even the most obvious garbage right on the main path was picked up(pop bottle and McDonald's junk), nothing, nada. Please, when you see someone else cleaning don't tell them how you clean that unless you really do. You might run into someone like me who knows you are lying.

Of course Avening has been a dream. Sometimes I wonder why I bother since there is so little garbage. At Avening I can clearly see the community(at least a few people) realy take pride in making their park a beautiful place. I go to the remote sections if I want to cleanup anything because everything else is a already so clean. No beer bottle caps, not even cigarrette butts. It is quite amazing. Avening should get an award for the way they maintain their park.