Garbage overflows regularly at public trash cans. (Photo by Ray Johnson, two weeks before the storm.)
The storm has caused so much destruction, sending boats, trees and their limbs, signs, and houses crashing to the ground. But it’s not just the trees that got whipped in the wind. Garbage like this gets blown onto the streets by the strong winds, just as well.
Sheepshead Bay, we have a major cleanup to do. Let’s hurry and clean up our act before our streets become one big trash heap.
The garbage situation is growing larger around Sheepshead Bay — so much so, that maintenance people at this apartment building on Ocean Avenue (near Gravesend Neck Road) have put up four large garbage bags along the stretch of the front fence.
We’re thinking that the regular black garbage bags are just not bright enough for the polluters to spot. These bright blue bags will be hard to miss, though.
It used to be that the front of a building was dressed up for aesthetics with pretty flowers and shrubbery. In the modern day of excess packaging and people generating so much garbage in the form of empty bottles, coffee cups, and other junk, there is just not enough place to discard this stuff. There was a time, when most people just tucked the errant candy wrapper or chewed up gum and placed it in their pocket where they would discard it at home. Yes, people, I said home! Nowadays, without even a glimmer of guilt, many people just dump the excess weight onto the sidewalk, leaving a trail of debris behind them.
Sheepshead Bay needs to rediscover its roots, when people cared about the cleanliness of the environment. I’m sure you old-timers will know what we’re talking about, here.
The Brownstoner tells us that in honor of the International Coastal Cleanup Day, one Brooklyn resident is raising money and organizing volunteers to help the Prospect Park Lake cleanup effort.
After having seen a tremendous amount of debris in the lake during an electric boat tour and having sensed a threat to the delicate ecostructure of the lake in her own backyard, Tami decided that it was time to get involved.
We would like to congratulate her in her efforts to call attention to Brooklyn’s dirty waters — because, although Prospect Park Lake is not coastal or ocean, Tami and her 19 (and maybe, more) volunteers will do the cleanup on September 19. Check out the chronicling of her efforts on ioby (acronym for “in our backyards”) and on Facebook.
Here, in Sheepshead Bay, our coastal, stagnant bay waters are in desperate need of a Tami. Just take a look at the picture above. That’s just one instance of debris floating in the bay.
There’s almost a whole month to get something going and, of course, we know that Sheepshead Bay’s problems are way too big to be tackled in one day. For that matter, international coasts are large enough that there can be an entire year set aside to clean up. Still, even just one day where we can call attention to Sheepshead Bay’s cleanup is a welcome one, and even if a topical cleanup is done for cosmetic purposes, our stroll could be more pleasurable.
Will a Sheepshead Bay Tami step up? Or, will we be satisfied with garbage afloat in our own backwaters?
