It seems that someone (or maybe multiple someones) cleaned the area known as the Corridor of Hope AKA Stretch of Sketch AKA Captiol Avenue between Forest Street and Laurel Street. It looks nice. Some tree branches have been moved to visually block the array of garbage behind the fence in one spot. Nobody appeared to be hardcore enough to hop the fence and remove the major piles of debris.

That surprises me since so much of what I see daily appears to be centered on acts of bravado — riding street illegal vehicles the wrong way down one way streets, carrying weapons, talking smack. The logical trajectory of that, in my mind anyway, is for these kids to show their peers how truly gangsta they are by dragging illegally dumped toilets and tires out of the woods and into bags for the Department of Public Works to pick up.

Speaking of the DPW, myself and other community members have contacted 311 about the dozens of bags of garbage left behind from this clean up.

While I am willing to give props for the litter pick-up that this group did, I feel compelled to remind that there is a difference between litter pick-up and litter removal.  Bags left for days are prone to being ripped open by animals (or humans, even) and bust open by buses, as well as posing a danger to cyclists when left in the bike lane, as several were.

As a friend pointed out, leaving bags of garbage in a lily bed sends the signal that dumping trash is okay. Please, folks, don’t half-ass it! If you’re going to clean up an area, either remove the bags yourselves or wait until a truck from the DPW has come by to pick up the junk. As of 9:30 Monday morning, the bags remained on the sidewalk, on the lily bed, and on the street.

Anyway, if you are looking for another way to represent, this Saturday (Oct 3rd, 11am) you can show some love for Hartford by helping to pick up trash in and along the Connecticut River. The Source to Sea Cleanup event. Beat Bike Blog, Bill Phillips & Judy Preston/Tidewaters Institute, Boy Scout Troop 260, Boy Scout Troop 66, CDM, East Hartford Hockanum River Commission, Ed Sopneski & Jennifer Hillhouse, NRG Middletown Power, Enfield Conservation Commission, Farmington River Watershed Association, Friends of the Canal, Friends of the River, Glastonbury Boy Scout Troop 540, Glastonbury High School Environmental Club, Glastonbury High School Inter-act Club, Grade 6 Language Arts Volunteers, Haddam Land Trust, Higganum Cub Scout Pack 40, Old Saybrook Land Trust, Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative, REI West Hartford, Rocky Hill High School Lend-a-Paw, Rotary Club of Cromwell, Save the Sound, Scantic River Watershed Association, Suffield Meadows Condo Assoc, The Academy School, The Jonah Center for Earth and Art, the MDC, The Nature Conservancy, Town of Windsor, Trinity College Green Campus, Two Rivers Magnet Middle School, Wethersfield Greenup, and Windsor Locks Conservation Commission all participated in Connecticut last year. Folks over at the Beat Bike Blog are once again organizing a group to clean up where the Connecticut and Park Rivers come together. You can reach this spot via trail that runs along the river; it’s between Charter Oak Landing and Riverfront Plaza.

UPDATE: as of 10:30 pm, 9/28, the garbage bags were still on Capitol Avenue

UPDATE: as of 3pm, 9/29, the garbage bags remained.

UPDATE: as of 7:20am, 9/30, the bags are still here. This is a main thoroughfare. Are people really driving so fast that they are not seeing the bags of garbage both piled up and strewn about? Does 311 never check their email alerts?

UPDATE: The trash has been picked up (10/1). Woot!