Greenbelt Restoration Work Parties: July 16 and 23

I had scheduled four work parties for the month of July. I reported on the July 2nd and 9th events in earlier posts. When I broke my wrist on July 13th, it was obvious that I could not lead the last two, but other Green Seattle Partnership Forest Stewards stepped into that role. Ananya, a GreenFriends member and my fellow Forest Steward on this restoration project, led the first one. Ananya was not available on the 23^rd so Susan, a Forest Steward who has been doing this work for more than a decade, led that one.

Even though I was not able to do the physical work, I was happy to discover that I could still contribute. I completed the pre-and-post work party administrative work, gave the initial orientation to the participants at the beginning of the events and helped with the snack breaks. As a result, I continued to feel like a part of the team.

July 16^th

Five GreenFriends members, two students, and a neighbor participated in the work party on the 16th of July. They focused on picking up trash and dismantling the piles of debris that had been raked up during previous work parties. The debris was placed on burlap bags that had been spread earlier in July. They moved any blackberry root balls they found in the piles to the rack zone to dry. They also spread burlap bags over land that had been cleared in the past.

Trash

It is always interesting to see what kind of trash we find. At this work party, a student found a tube of lotion that had an expiration date of 1989. That student was born in 1997!

Sarva found this treasure:

Moving rootballs to the rack zone

Spreading debris on burlap (click on gallery to enlarge photos)

One of the highlights of this work party was that we turned in the certificate for the prize we had won at Rainier Chamber of Commerce’s Bridge2Beach Seattle clean up event in March. The certificate was for $50 of Full Tilt ice cream. Needless to say, we enjoyed that part of the work party.

July 23

The July work parties were scheduled in a way that would support the University of Washington Environmental Science students. Their volunteer hours and reports were due on July 27^th so the July 23^rd work party was in high demand. Twenty-one students and two of their friends, a neighbor and three GreenFriends members participated in this work party.

The participants were divided into various groups. One group carried burlap bags from an area near the street to our Greenbelt site. Other groups looked for and removed bindweed, i.e. morning glory vines; removed ivy; or dug out blackberry root balls. As various jobs were completed, participants continued the ongoing work of laying down burlap and covering it with debris.

Attendees of this work party had the opportunity to eat the rest of the Full Tilt ice cream!

It is amazing how much we accomplished during the month of July. Every work party was a confirmation of the saying, “Many hands make light work.” And besides that, it was fun to work together.

These photos show some of the trash that was picked up during the four July work parties. I wonder if we will ever get to the end of it.

Everything we do takes us a step closer to planting trees, shrubs and groundcovers this fall. It also moves us towards restoring this land to the beautiful forest it was meant to be; one that will provide homes to birds, butterflies, bees and many other forms of wildlife.

Another Greenbelt Adventure

When I learned that today’s Word Press Daily Prompt was “Record,” nothing came to my mind. Hours later, it occurred to me that I am recording the work my friends and I are doing in Seattle’s Greenbelt, in part by taking photographs!

From time to time during the last few weeks, I have been digging out a carpet that has been buried in the Greenbelt for decades. I discovered the carpet on a day I was trying to remove blackberry root balls and couldn’t get a shovel to go into the ground.

At that time, I scraped away some dirt and saw this.

When I removed more of the dirt, I found what was keeping me from digging. It is hard to tell from this photo, but what you are seeing is a dirty carpet.

Earlier in the day I had noticed this:

I had uncovered a scrub brush in the Greenbelt the day before, so when I first saw this piece of plastic I thought it might be another brush. After finding the buried carpet though, I realized that what I had thought might turn out to be bristles was actually part of the unraveling carpet.

The carpet was big and heavy. In some places it was three layers thick, so I didn’t know if I would be able to move it enough to free it from the roots, blackberries and ivy but I kept at it.

Yesterday, I finally succeeded in freeing the carpet and rolling it up.

It is too heavy for me to move so that will have to wait until there is a group of people who can take it away. Hopefully that will be tomorrow when a city work team comes to cut down more of the blackberry vines.

Moments after rolling up the carpeting, this caught my eye.

That will have to be a project for a different day!

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: State of Mind

This morning I took a short walk to the grocery store. About three blocks from my house I came upon a scene that took me through several states of mind. Even though all of these photos were taken within a 20 foot segment of the block, my mood ranged from awe to despair.

Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: State of Mind

My Early Morning Walk (February)

When I walked out my front door this morning, the first thing I saw was the garbage and left over food someone had thrown onto the street in front of my house. I picked up most of it before starting my morning walk. A few blocks from my house I saw more trash; this time it was four beer cans, a paper bag and other forms of litter. I decided to pick up at least some of it on my way back home.

I took a route that I had never taken before. I was startled when I walked by a house that had bamboo stalks bigger than any I had ever seen. In fact, they were much taller than the three story house. A fence hampered my ability to take good photographs, but these will at least give you an idea of what they looked like.

I continued walking for awhile and then headed back home. The garbage was still waiting for me.

As I got ready to pick it up, some very tiny flowers caught my eye. I decided to photograph those.

After gathering the trash, I continued on my way home. As I walked, I reflected on the litter, the bamboo and the flowers. I’ve continued to think about them throughout the day.

Several years ago, picking up litter was a major focus in my daily life but that has not been true for awhile. It is time for me to find my litter grabber and to once again support Mother Nature in that way.

266,000 and More to Come!

Last Saturday, twelve of our local members of the PNW GreenFriends Litter Project met at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Our goal, to pick up as many cigarette butts as we could in an hour and a half. The Litter Project was formed in 2011. Most of our members come from the Pacific Northwest part of the United States, but we also have members from other parts of the U.S. and around the world.

When I started picking up litter, I thought that cigarette filters were harmless cotton and often passed them by in favor of the bigger pieces of litter. Soon I learned they were anything but harmless. They are made from cellulose acetate tow and they can take decades to degrade. Investigators in a San Diego State University study once discovered that if you put fathead minnows and top smelt in a liter of water that also contains a single cigarette butt, half of the fish will die. Continue reading “266,000 and More to Come!” →

Wordless Wednesday

Weekly Photo Challenge: Broken

In 2006, a UN Environment Programme report estimated that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. While I don’t know how much plastic is in the ground, I know that whenever I dig in the empty lot behind my house, I find plastic in every shovelful. I have lived in this house since 1973. Most of the plastic has been there longer than that.

In March, a friend helped me cut down and remove many of the blackberry vines in that area. Later, I cleared the remaining brush from one 36 square-foot section so that I could plant potatoes.

The pictures below show the trash I found when I made the holes for the potato starts. (I did not dig out the entire 36 square-foot area. These objects were found only in in the holes I dug.)

I took the first two photos when the garbage was still in the yard. The third was taken after I spread the trash out on my deck table, The fourth is what it looked like after I gave it a light washing. Notice how little decomposition there has been in the decades this trash has been in the ground.

Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: Broken

Twenty Pounds of Cigarette Butts

This past Saturday, thirteen members of the Seattle area part of the PNW Litter Project made it possible to keep 20 pounds of cigarette butts out of landfills, waterways and stomachs of birds and other forms of wildlife.

Cigarette butts are way more toxic than you might think. They are NOT made of cotton, they are made of cellulose acetate tow and they can take decades to degrade. Investigators in a San Diego State University study once discovered that if you put fathead minnows and top smelt in a liter of water that also contains a single cigarette butt, half of the fish will die.

We have been picking up cigarette butts for the last three years. This particular work party was held in the International District of Seattle and was in honor of Kick Butts Day, an annual celebration of youth leadership and activism in the fight against tobacco use. The event is organized by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and sponsored by the United Health Foundation.

The weather forecast for Saturday was dismal, one inch of rain was predicted. Nature graced us however. While it was cold and windy and everything was wet due to the rain that had fallen the previous night, there was no rainfall during the 1 ½ to 2 hours we worked.

I like to believe that Mother Nature was pleased with us because after we finished, the wind died down and it was sunny for a good part of the day!

Tomorrow I will be packing up the 20 pounds of cigarette butts and mailing them to TerraCycle where they will be turned into plastic pallets!

Protecting Mother Nature From Straws

When I was in India recently, I used so many straws to drink coconut w to the world’s plastic garbage problem in my face. It also reminded me of a short article I wrote recently for one of our GreenFriends Newsletters. I am going to reprint that article here both to give you information and to remind myself of the importance of changing my behavior. Continue reading “Protecting Mother Nature From Straws” →