Milk?
- Thread starter Eligos
- Start date
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Best thing to mix with cereal is yogurt. Then mix in some raspberries and chocolate chips and you'll win at breakfast.
Winter.
Member
Winter.
Member
Winter.
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Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Winter.
Member
General Zaroff
Registered Lunatic
Demonic viscera
sludge thrall
A friend of mine once said "milk is for baby cows". I would have to disagree. Although beer is a much better substitute for weekends.
uke:
uke:
Demonic viscera
sludge thrall
ooops . I've been drinking it straight from the fucking cow. That explains the diarrhea i've been getting and the hoof prints on my forehead.
skeptik
Member
- Feb 7, 2003
- 24,413
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Why I Have Pet Chickens
When someone finds out I have pet chickens I'm often asked why. Especially because I am a vegan….Or was a vegan for 9 years, or still am mostly vegan-- however you want to call it really. Then they ask me if the eggs taste way better than store-bought eggs. I don't know. I was a vegan for 9 years remember? I can't really remember what those scrambled eggs or whatever I had at age 13 tasted like now. Plus I'm not exactly an egg connoisseur--- I don't like eggs that much. They're slightly gross. This is how I'll eat an egg: Over easy, on toast. With some tapenade…. So don't ask me to evaluate the taste, consistency and color of my chicken's eggs compared to starved, mutilated, and abused chicken's conventional store eggs please. But yes, from what I am told by everyone eggs from happy chickens taste better than from sad chickens, if that makes you feel any better.
I keep chickens because I like chickens, and because after 9 years of being vegan I felt like what I was doing had come to a plateau. I already was vegan save for refined sugar and other little inconsistencies like some honey, some animal fur paint brushes----and my blush makeup brush is animal fur. Beeswax in chapstick; the kind of things that don't make a huge difference to me, that I refuse to stress over…and are practically unavoidable---certain paint brushes are better off as animal fur, so it's a choice—Be a little more vegan, or be a little better of a painter--- I pick up garbage religiously, have water savers in every toilet, take 5 minute showers (unless I have to shave and stuff), I reuse all that I can, I already recycle absolutely everything I can. Not a scrap of glass, metal, standard plastics, paper---- no receipt is thrown out, it is recycled. I don't care if it's 2 inches big and crumpled in a ball. But this isn't about what a Mother Teresa of the environment I am.
I've wanted chickens since high school. Not long ago most households in America had chickens. I have had at least 2 dozen old people tell me when they meet or hear of my chickens that they had chickens when they were little, or that their neighbors did, etc. Now no one does. Not only does no one keep chickens, but our demand for eggs (and chicken) is higher than ever. The only way to meet such a demand with virtually no one owning chickens is to cram together in wire, un-bedded cages, cut off their beaks, treat them like machines, make them sick, take away any shard of animal instinct and breath of life from them.
With a demand like this for animal products there is no other way to go about it…they could be a little kinder, yes, but those animals still have no life, no existence worth living for. I want people to keep chickens again. Unfertilized eggs are I guess the only animal product I would condone eating because not only is egg white protein the most similar in genetic makeup to human protein and easier for us to digest than any other, but it is pain-free. Unfertilized eggs are not needed by the chickens, unlike cows milk, which is not only gross for humans to drink the milk of a cow, but it is made for a baby cow. And meat…well I don't know it's a personal choice I'm not getting into it here all I'm going to say is the modern practice of factory farming as well as slaughter is out of control.
This blog isn't supposed to come off as too defensive, or preachy or anything it's just an explanation, and my thoughts and opinions on the subject.
My chickens:
Ima-
Sumi-
Izzy (Originally Izanami but I just call her Izzy or Izz)-
If we are ever to truly help what goes on in factory farms today it is this I've learned: Reduce demand---reduce it by any means possible. I have learned in these 9 years that people, Americans, will never stop eating meat, never stop drinking milk or eating eggs. I will probably never be able to stop what goes on.. I used to be very naive and thought I would change everything, everyone. The goal I want to achieve now is to reduce. Meat is not needed every day, at every meal. Milk is fucking gross okay, and eggs could so easily be gotten fresh and pain free by keeping a couple chickens in your back yard. They are beautiful birds, gentle, hilarious, awkward yet oddly graceful, good company and they fertilize your lawn-- helping to bring back our ever-diminishing topsoil. They also eat insects---reducing our need to use pesticides and other chemicals on our lawns..
It amazes me, how little Americans know about chickens. This country eats chicken every single day, including her eggs, and I am asked constantly how eggs are produced, how many a day, how they can be laid without a rooster around, all this basic fucking shit that you would think people would know. Eggs are eggs, all females have them, we all release them, regardless of contact with males. Chicken eggs are simply ovulation that occurs A LOT. About every 25 hours to be exact. It's pretty incredible.
So in a week they collectively lay 21 eggs. Definitely more than we need. I give away much of the eggs I get. Every dozen eggs I give to someone it's a dozen less they're buying from the store. It counts…
Interesting facts:
My chickens don't like rambunctious dogs and they bitch-slap the dog when she's annoying.
Really, they do. They'll slap her with their wings and act all tough it's adorable.
They follow me whenever I'm around. And come running to me when I call them. They are like any other pet and know who their owner is, know where their food comes from and for the most part trust me. I can pick them up and walk around with them perched on me, cuddle them, kiss them, they don't mind, they like the affection….In some weird, simple bird way.
Watching them run to you is hilarious. They're like little armless freaks.
My chickens and I, being dorks.
They give the Stewie Eye sometimes, most often when tired—That is when their upper and lower eyelids come halfway down and they resemble Stewie from Family Guy. I wish I could take a picture of this phenomenon but it takes up too much time to sit around with a camera trying to capture moments and I just get annoyed. So here's a picture of Stewie.
Tips on Keeping Chickens:
- Keep more than one. Chickens are social animals and form hierarchies. When they are crammed into cages yes they have lots of chickens around but it's impossible for them to form ranks and they go insane. Two or 3 is good for the average home.
- Make sure where you're getting them from is a reputable place.. I'd probably go there and see them beforehand. I got my chickens on a whim and didn't research the place and it turns out they trimmed their beaks. Trimming a chicken's beak is not necessary in fact it's painful and usually indicative of the fact they were kept in un-sound conditions. Beak-trimming or cutting off entirely, like in factory farms, is so the chickens do not peck at each other when they are unhappy… And how can anything be happy when they cannot even move an inch, are in constant pain and surrounded by filth and disease and the squawking of hundreds of other chickens?
- People are afraid of them freezing in the winter but they are very hearty birds and as long as they have a dry sheltered place to stay they'll be fine. I put insulation around my henhouse just to be sure, as well as an electric heat pad inside but I probably over did it. You can also leave their poop to ferment over the winter in the henhouse and just keep putting hay over it, it will let off heat. Just be warned---Cleaning this come springtime is fucking nasty. But you'll live. Chickens like Rhode Island Reds actually find colder weather easier than the hotter weather.
- Make sure they have water and food around at all times. They eat and drink constantly throughout the day
- They love grass.
- They must be kept safe, especially at night. Have a coop for them that can be locked. Make sure animals cannot crawl under or over it.
- They're like any pet really…Just keep an eye on them, read up about them, talk to other people who keep chickens. I should probably do more of that.
- You don't need a rooster. Roosters are kind of annoying, I know.
Now you're all ready to go get some chickens and stop buying store bought eggs.
- Cara De Angelis
An open letter to Paris Hilton
In response to her recent petition to Govenor Schwarzenegger:
This is to you and your type.
The kind of second-rate, blond-hair-ed, pink lipstick-wearing, orange-skinned twats like you who have no talent, no conscience, no love, no passion, no modesty and no morality. You simultaneously feed off the weak-minded and pretend to provide for them as well.
You talk as if you have a career, or a purpose in life but you don't. Other than to piss off people like me. Your "career" is that of nothing more than a glorified attention whore.
I hate celebrities who have enough money and notoriety to do something good with their lives but fail to. They have the means to raise awareness and bring upon change but don't have enough heart or ambition or soul to do so. They'd rather spend their riches and their voices buying and/or talking about cars, estates, clothing, money, art, parties, and all that is frivolous and unnecessary.
I'm the type of person who is your worst enemy. Women who are talented, intelligent, modest kind AND beautiful. We will destroy women like you. I hope you die a horrible and painful death. If I was a truly violent person and thought I could get away with it I'd kill you and others like you myself. Preferably with an axe. Double sided. With spikes. And shit.
Love,
Cara De Angelis
Cleaning campus one woman at a time PT 2
For my Living in the Environment class last semester we all had to do 12+ hours of community service and document it. I chose to keep doing what I always do and that is pick up garbage and recycle recycleable items, etc but in a more intensive way. I tried to clean the entire campus in just a few weeks, as well as some of Webb Circle. I am still doing both, and all that I cleaned last semester is already covered again with trash. Actually I think it's even worse than before. But I'm not giving up.
Disclaimer: Most of the garbage is not visible in these pictures because it was hidden beneath brush and leaves. Also, this is a very simple and straightforward paper, please do not judge my writing abilities on it. =/
"Cara De Angelis
AUCT: Living In the Environment
12/6/06
For my community service project, I chose to try and clean up the littered garbage from around campus and a road in my town called Webb Circle. Picking up garbage from along busy roads and public places is already familiar to me because my boyfriend and I have done it in the past. However with this I wanted to try and make a serious difference, at least to these two places, and littering is a big pet peeve of mine. I know I wouldn't be changing the world or anything. I know now, especially after this project that my efforts aren't really going to change anything, not like when I was 14 years old and told my English teacher Mr. Seymour "I'm going to save the rainforest when I grow up!" I'm not that naïve anymore. Nevertheless I'd still be making a difference, and getting some fresh air and exercise as well.
Cleaning up was harder than I thought it would be. There's a lot more garbage than I thought. And as a senior working on her thesis I didn't have as much time as I thought I would. On campus it was easier to pick up garbage because it wasn't alongside the woods, where everything is difficult to reach. There are also dumpsters nearby so I don't have to bring my car around and waste gas, or walk for too long with bags filled with garbage on my back. However, it's a little humiliating on campus because people look at you, some of them not very nicely, and if you happen to trip or fall while tiptoeing through slippery mud or brush, balancing yourself on a log through a stream, or reaching for a plastic bag in a tree, it's in public that you're falling in front of.
My first garbage clean up day around campus I was a little too over-enthusiastic and managed to get at least 8 sticky burrs tangled in my hair. They took over almost half of my head and I had to walk back to my dorm like that where my roommate was able to operate for 40 minutes before getting them out---along with a good portion of my hair, because the little hooks on the ends of them really got caught in there. It wasn't so funny at the time! But now that I look back on it I wish I had a picture because it was so ridiculous.
My strategy for cleaning up was to have bags for both recyclables and the garbage. All the recyclables I collected I planned on getting rich off of. The bags of garbage, at least on campus, I could empty out in the dumpsters and reuse the plastic bags to pick up more garbage, though I couldn't do this at home.
I managed to clean about 1/3 of the campus this semester. And that was many hours worth of work. I know I did more than 12 hours altogether including Webb Circle, however I didn't keep track of the time. I plan on cleaning more, at least around Webb Circle--- here it feels kind of hopeless. There are too many people around constantly who are always littering more. Every place I went and cleaned up already has litter everywhere again. Some places even more than it started.
When I began cleaning it was mainly around my dorm and that's when a group of kids (or perhaps it was just one) started throwing their bags of garbage right out of their windows and they would pile up on the lawn and I would pick them up and bring them to the dumpsters. Then there was a ridiculous amount dumped by the back entrance, which is the door I use since it's closest to my room. Someone even left his or her bag of garbage outside my door once, and my car also received some garbage at one point. I don't know if it's all just coincidence or not but I am not going to clean up a terrible lot more around here, although I will continue to pick up discarded cans or bottles when I see them and will recycle it. I'd rather continue around where I live, where I feel safer, and there aren't insane college kids around to harass anyone.
The items that were littered the most were fast food containers and cigarette butts. McDonalds bags and Dunkin Donuts coffee cups being the main fast food items that I saw. Other than fast food and cigarettes, water bottles were the most littered recyclable item; there were probably more water bottles than fast food containers. Another thing I realized quickly was that the leaves were hiding quite a bit of the garbage, and the more under the leaves I would go; the more garbage would be there to meet me.
I collected four big garbage bags of recyclables altogether this semester, and many bags of garbage… I'm not sure really because I would reuse the same bag several times over. Maybe a dozen or so altogether I want to say. And those dozen bags were just 1/3 of the campus and a little bit of Webb Circle. I would need 100 bags to clean up the rest of both.
The four bags of recyclables I planned on taking to the grocery store and get refunded on the glass, plastic and cans. I went Tuesday and brought three of the four bags in because I knew most of the stuff in the fourth bag was too dirty and old to go through the machines. However! It turned out most of them were too dirty or too crushed to work anyway. Plus, the idiot I am thought water bottles were refundable, but they are not, and they are what I picked up the most of. I managed to make a grand total of $2.75, and very sadly realized the gas it took me to drive there probably cost more.
So there's no real happy ending to this. There is still garbage on campus; I am still in the process of cleaning up Webb Circle and I wasn't able to make any money off of it. On the other hand, I'm just thinking I'll now bring three bags with me. One for garbage, one for non-refundable recyclables, and one for refundable recyclables. That way I won't have to fish through empty soup cans and detergent bottles when I'm at the bottle return center and I can save up enough until I know it will be worth the drive. Now I'm excited to get back out there this weekend!
Even though this has been a thoroughly depressing task for me at times, and I come home tired, dirty, seeds stuck in my hair and hating humanity, I feel good about it afterward. When I see those places cleaned of all the litter and cigarette butts (however brief) I know it's all worth it.
So yeah now that it's getting warm out again I'm back at it. Yesterday I made $2.00 off one bag of recycleables...though I was also cut in the wrist by a thorn "down the road" not "across the street" if you know what I mean. I bled and thought I was going to die. Death by community service!! On the other hand I did find a dollar bill in the weeds. =D
When someone finds out I have pet chickens I'm often asked why. Especially because I am a vegan….Or was a vegan for 9 years, or still am mostly vegan-- however you want to call it really. Then they ask me if the eggs taste way better than store-bought eggs. I don't know. I was a vegan for 9 years remember? I can't really remember what those scrambled eggs or whatever I had at age 13 tasted like now. Plus I'm not exactly an egg connoisseur--- I don't like eggs that much. They're slightly gross. This is how I'll eat an egg: Over easy, on toast. With some tapenade…. So don't ask me to evaluate the taste, consistency and color of my chicken's eggs compared to starved, mutilated, and abused chicken's conventional store eggs please. But yes, from what I am told by everyone eggs from happy chickens taste better than from sad chickens, if that makes you feel any better.
I keep chickens because I like chickens, and because after 9 years of being vegan I felt like what I was doing had come to a plateau. I already was vegan save for refined sugar and other little inconsistencies like some honey, some animal fur paint brushes----and my blush makeup brush is animal fur. Beeswax in chapstick; the kind of things that don't make a huge difference to me, that I refuse to stress over…and are practically unavoidable---certain paint brushes are better off as animal fur, so it's a choice—Be a little more vegan, or be a little better of a painter--- I pick up garbage religiously, have water savers in every toilet, take 5 minute showers (unless I have to shave and stuff), I reuse all that I can, I already recycle absolutely everything I can. Not a scrap of glass, metal, standard plastics, paper---- no receipt is thrown out, it is recycled. I don't care if it's 2 inches big and crumpled in a ball. But this isn't about what a Mother Teresa of the environment I am.
I've wanted chickens since high school. Not long ago most households in America had chickens. I have had at least 2 dozen old people tell me when they meet or hear of my chickens that they had chickens when they were little, or that their neighbors did, etc. Now no one does. Not only does no one keep chickens, but our demand for eggs (and chicken) is higher than ever. The only way to meet such a demand with virtually no one owning chickens is to cram together in wire, un-bedded cages, cut off their beaks, treat them like machines, make them sick, take away any shard of animal instinct and breath of life from them.
With a demand like this for animal products there is no other way to go about it…they could be a little kinder, yes, but those animals still have no life, no existence worth living for. I want people to keep chickens again. Unfertilized eggs are I guess the only animal product I would condone eating because not only is egg white protein the most similar in genetic makeup to human protein and easier for us to digest than any other, but it is pain-free. Unfertilized eggs are not needed by the chickens, unlike cows milk, which is not only gross for humans to drink the milk of a cow, but it is made for a baby cow. And meat…well I don't know it's a personal choice I'm not getting into it here all I'm going to say is the modern practice of factory farming as well as slaughter is out of control.
This blog isn't supposed to come off as too defensive, or preachy or anything it's just an explanation, and my thoughts and opinions on the subject.
My chickens:
Ima-
Sumi-
Izzy (Originally Izanami but I just call her Izzy or Izz)-
If we are ever to truly help what goes on in factory farms today it is this I've learned: Reduce demand---reduce it by any means possible. I have learned in these 9 years that people, Americans, will never stop eating meat, never stop drinking milk or eating eggs. I will probably never be able to stop what goes on.. I used to be very naive and thought I would change everything, everyone. The goal I want to achieve now is to reduce. Meat is not needed every day, at every meal. Milk is fucking gross okay, and eggs could so easily be gotten fresh and pain free by keeping a couple chickens in your back yard. They are beautiful birds, gentle, hilarious, awkward yet oddly graceful, good company and they fertilize your lawn-- helping to bring back our ever-diminishing topsoil. They also eat insects---reducing our need to use pesticides and other chemicals on our lawns..
It amazes me, how little Americans know about chickens. This country eats chicken every single day, including her eggs, and I am asked constantly how eggs are produced, how many a day, how they can be laid without a rooster around, all this basic fucking shit that you would think people would know. Eggs are eggs, all females have them, we all release them, regardless of contact with males. Chicken eggs are simply ovulation that occurs A LOT. About every 25 hours to be exact. It's pretty incredible.
So in a week they collectively lay 21 eggs. Definitely more than we need. I give away much of the eggs I get. Every dozen eggs I give to someone it's a dozen less they're buying from the store. It counts…
Interesting facts:
My chickens don't like rambunctious dogs and they bitch-slap the dog when she's annoying.
Really, they do. They'll slap her with their wings and act all tough it's adorable.
They follow me whenever I'm around. And come running to me when I call them. They are like any other pet and know who their owner is, know where their food comes from and for the most part trust me. I can pick them up and walk around with them perched on me, cuddle them, kiss them, they don't mind, they like the affection….In some weird, simple bird way.
Watching them run to you is hilarious. They're like little armless freaks.
My chickens and I, being dorks.
They give the Stewie Eye sometimes, most often when tired—That is when their upper and lower eyelids come halfway down and they resemble Stewie from Family Guy. I wish I could take a picture of this phenomenon but it takes up too much time to sit around with a camera trying to capture moments and I just get annoyed. So here's a picture of Stewie.
Tips on Keeping Chickens:
- Keep more than one. Chickens are social animals and form hierarchies. When they are crammed into cages yes they have lots of chickens around but it's impossible for them to form ranks and they go insane. Two or 3 is good for the average home.
- Make sure where you're getting them from is a reputable place.. I'd probably go there and see them beforehand. I got my chickens on a whim and didn't research the place and it turns out they trimmed their beaks. Trimming a chicken's beak is not necessary in fact it's painful and usually indicative of the fact they were kept in un-sound conditions. Beak-trimming or cutting off entirely, like in factory farms, is so the chickens do not peck at each other when they are unhappy… And how can anything be happy when they cannot even move an inch, are in constant pain and surrounded by filth and disease and the squawking of hundreds of other chickens?
- People are afraid of them freezing in the winter but they are very hearty birds and as long as they have a dry sheltered place to stay they'll be fine. I put insulation around my henhouse just to be sure, as well as an electric heat pad inside but I probably over did it. You can also leave their poop to ferment over the winter in the henhouse and just keep putting hay over it, it will let off heat. Just be warned---Cleaning this come springtime is fucking nasty. But you'll live. Chickens like Rhode Island Reds actually find colder weather easier than the hotter weather.
- Make sure they have water and food around at all times. They eat and drink constantly throughout the day
- They love grass.
- They must be kept safe, especially at night. Have a coop for them that can be locked. Make sure animals cannot crawl under or over it.
- They're like any pet really…Just keep an eye on them, read up about them, talk to other people who keep chickens. I should probably do more of that.
- You don't need a rooster. Roosters are kind of annoying, I know.
Now you're all ready to go get some chickens and stop buying store bought eggs.
- Cara De Angelis
An open letter to Paris Hilton
In response to her recent petition to Govenor Schwarzenegger:
This is to you and your type.
The kind of second-rate, blond-hair-ed, pink lipstick-wearing, orange-skinned twats like you who have no talent, no conscience, no love, no passion, no modesty and no morality. You simultaneously feed off the weak-minded and pretend to provide for them as well.
You talk as if you have a career, or a purpose in life but you don't. Other than to piss off people like me. Your "career" is that of nothing more than a glorified attention whore.
I hate celebrities who have enough money and notoriety to do something good with their lives but fail to. They have the means to raise awareness and bring upon change but don't have enough heart or ambition or soul to do so. They'd rather spend their riches and their voices buying and/or talking about cars, estates, clothing, money, art, parties, and all that is frivolous and unnecessary.
I'm the type of person who is your worst enemy. Women who are talented, intelligent, modest kind AND beautiful. We will destroy women like you. I hope you die a horrible and painful death. If I was a truly violent person and thought I could get away with it I'd kill you and others like you myself. Preferably with an axe. Double sided. With spikes. And shit.
Love,
Cara De Angelis
Cleaning campus one woman at a time PT 2
For my Living in the Environment class last semester we all had to do 12+ hours of community service and document it. I chose to keep doing what I always do and that is pick up garbage and recycle recycleable items, etc but in a more intensive way. I tried to clean the entire campus in just a few weeks, as well as some of Webb Circle. I am still doing both, and all that I cleaned last semester is already covered again with trash. Actually I think it's even worse than before. But I'm not giving up.
Disclaimer: Most of the garbage is not visible in these pictures because it was hidden beneath brush and leaves. Also, this is a very simple and straightforward paper, please do not judge my writing abilities on it. =/
"Cara De Angelis
AUCT: Living In the Environment
12/6/06
For my community service project, I chose to try and clean up the littered garbage from around campus and a road in my town called Webb Circle. Picking up garbage from along busy roads and public places is already familiar to me because my boyfriend and I have done it in the past. However with this I wanted to try and make a serious difference, at least to these two places, and littering is a big pet peeve of mine. I know I wouldn't be changing the world or anything. I know now, especially after this project that my efforts aren't really going to change anything, not like when I was 14 years old and told my English teacher Mr. Seymour "I'm going to save the rainforest when I grow up!" I'm not that naïve anymore. Nevertheless I'd still be making a difference, and getting some fresh air and exercise as well.
Cleaning up was harder than I thought it would be. There's a lot more garbage than I thought. And as a senior working on her thesis I didn't have as much time as I thought I would. On campus it was easier to pick up garbage because it wasn't alongside the woods, where everything is difficult to reach. There are also dumpsters nearby so I don't have to bring my car around and waste gas, or walk for too long with bags filled with garbage on my back. However, it's a little humiliating on campus because people look at you, some of them not very nicely, and if you happen to trip or fall while tiptoeing through slippery mud or brush, balancing yourself on a log through a stream, or reaching for a plastic bag in a tree, it's in public that you're falling in front of.
My first garbage clean up day around campus I was a little too over-enthusiastic and managed to get at least 8 sticky burrs tangled in my hair. They took over almost half of my head and I had to walk back to my dorm like that where my roommate was able to operate for 40 minutes before getting them out---along with a good portion of my hair, because the little hooks on the ends of them really got caught in there. It wasn't so funny at the time! But now that I look back on it I wish I had a picture because it was so ridiculous.
My strategy for cleaning up was to have bags for both recyclables and the garbage. All the recyclables I collected I planned on getting rich off of. The bags of garbage, at least on campus, I could empty out in the dumpsters and reuse the plastic bags to pick up more garbage, though I couldn't do this at home.
I managed to clean about 1/3 of the campus this semester. And that was many hours worth of work. I know I did more than 12 hours altogether including Webb Circle, however I didn't keep track of the time. I plan on cleaning more, at least around Webb Circle--- here it feels kind of hopeless. There are too many people around constantly who are always littering more. Every place I went and cleaned up already has litter everywhere again. Some places even more than it started.
When I began cleaning it was mainly around my dorm and that's when a group of kids (or perhaps it was just one) started throwing their bags of garbage right out of their windows and they would pile up on the lawn and I would pick them up and bring them to the dumpsters. Then there was a ridiculous amount dumped by the back entrance, which is the door I use since it's closest to my room. Someone even left his or her bag of garbage outside my door once, and my car also received some garbage at one point. I don't know if it's all just coincidence or not but I am not going to clean up a terrible lot more around here, although I will continue to pick up discarded cans or bottles when I see them and will recycle it. I'd rather continue around where I live, where I feel safer, and there aren't insane college kids around to harass anyone.
The items that were littered the most were fast food containers and cigarette butts. McDonalds bags and Dunkin Donuts coffee cups being the main fast food items that I saw. Other than fast food and cigarettes, water bottles were the most littered recyclable item; there were probably more water bottles than fast food containers. Another thing I realized quickly was that the leaves were hiding quite a bit of the garbage, and the more under the leaves I would go; the more garbage would be there to meet me.
I collected four big garbage bags of recyclables altogether this semester, and many bags of garbage… I'm not sure really because I would reuse the same bag several times over. Maybe a dozen or so altogether I want to say. And those dozen bags were just 1/3 of the campus and a little bit of Webb Circle. I would need 100 bags to clean up the rest of both.
The four bags of recyclables I planned on taking to the grocery store and get refunded on the glass, plastic and cans. I went Tuesday and brought three of the four bags in because I knew most of the stuff in the fourth bag was too dirty and old to go through the machines. However! It turned out most of them were too dirty or too crushed to work anyway. Plus, the idiot I am thought water bottles were refundable, but they are not, and they are what I picked up the most of. I managed to make a grand total of $2.75, and very sadly realized the gas it took me to drive there probably cost more.
So there's no real happy ending to this. There is still garbage on campus; I am still in the process of cleaning up Webb Circle and I wasn't able to make any money off of it. On the other hand, I'm just thinking I'll now bring three bags with me. One for garbage, one for non-refundable recyclables, and one for refundable recyclables. That way I won't have to fish through empty soup cans and detergent bottles when I'm at the bottle return center and I can save up enough until I know it will be worth the drive. Now I'm excited to get back out there this weekend!
Even though this has been a thoroughly depressing task for me at times, and I come home tired, dirty, seeds stuck in my hair and hating humanity, I feel good about it afterward. When I see those places cleaned of all the litter and cigarette butts (however brief) I know it's all worth it.
So yeah now that it's getting warm out again I'm back at it. Yesterday I made $2.00 off one bag of recycleables...though I was also cut in the wrist by a thorn "down the road" not "across the street" if you know what I mean. I bled and thought I was going to die. Death by community service!! On the other hand I did find a dollar bill in the weeds. =D
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