In early March of 2020, this sneaker was half-buried in mud and fully submerged in the Utoy creek. It symbolizes a heinous problem. Cascade Springs Nature Preserve is a collecting ground for unwanted consumer products.
The southwest side of Atlanta is woefully under-serviced with nature trails and protected wildlife parks which makes Cascade Nature Preserve an invaluable asset to the surrounding community.
On the hike, Lucy, my puppy, picked up an enormous shard of glass as if it was a stick. She found nasty rags and old napkins.
Every time I confiscated the unsanitary item, she’d find another. Like my father did, I began to collect the random items. It wasn’t long before I realized the problem is insurmountable for one person.
Not even a group of dedicated people could come to the park and clean up all the trash. The massive tires and submerged buckets and containers would take machinery. It would take the City of Atlanta. It will take all of us.
The problem is not the trash, not really. It’s that everyone has chosen to ignore the trash. The brain is quite adapt at editing and trash is at the top of the list of: No Need To Compute.
But what if the trash couldn’t be ignored any longer?
Stenciled on the surfaces of the expansive array of household items were s words “Care” and “Call” and nearby was Atlanta’s Park and Recreation’s phone number “404-546-6813” and “Help Get It Hauled.”
Curious mounds of trash shredded and strewn into a nearby tree actually had me wondering. Had someone intended to make art out of the discarded items. Upon close inspection, I realized it wasn’t a person who had crafted such an unusually bizarre beauty, but nature.
Unlike Doll’s Head trail, a beloved ATL spot where discarded junk found at the park is artfully decorates hikers—this collected hodgepodge of unwanted goods was not supposed to entertain but get park traffic to use their phones hoping the volume of phone calls would get noticed.
Atlantan’s shouldn’t have to turn trash into decorative art because it’s all over our parks.
Abundant and invasive, the litter becomes a dominant visual force. So pervasive the problem it transcends into the surreal.
Just below the water’s surface, car tires rest passing for rocks.
The trees’ limbs are strewn with the entwined and tattered plastic bags snared and snagged rustling in the wind with their brethren organic brothers, layering in another soft song.
Malformed, beaten, and torn single-serving snack wrappers amass in the underbrush defying disintegration.
I have submitted a Park Quality Control Inspection form to Tina Arnold. Under litter, trash, I gave a 10 to the problem and described the trash issues.
Cascade Nature Preserve hasn’t been cleaned and Camp Creek could use a massive creek clean up too.
You must be logged in to post a comment.