Updated 6/6/2019: Seeking "objets trouvés" in the Imperial Capital

Sunday, May 19, 2019

6/4  JB: I should add to this blog the "artistic" label :)  Seeking "objets trouvés" (rather than plastic crap?) in the Imperial Capital ...

See also: an encouraging article under the title: "Plastic Gets a Do-Over: Breakthrough Discovery Recycles Plastic From the Inside Out." See also (1) (2)

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On my quite not infrequent 45-minute jog (stroll might be a better word) in NW Washington DC (down Tilden Street to Rock Creek Park; along the path in Rock Creek Park

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to Porter Street; up Porter Street to Connecticut Avenue; jog ends at the Van Ness/ UDC metro station) I do my "citizen's thing" and pick up litter.

FYI, I jog (when I do jog rather than stroll, very slowly) with a bag (yes, I plead guilty: ... a plastic bag) in hand where I place the litter.

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As I stretch my aging muscles, have taken a special interest in picking up plastic water bottles left empty/half empty along my strollin'/joggin' way.

(Some of the plastic bottles, btw, are filled with urine, as I've noticed on several occasions on the east side of Tilden Street leading downhill to Rock Creek Park.)

May I note that the plastic bottles are not the only form of trash I pick up. The waste ranges (aside from its plastic bottled incarnations) from empty aluminum cans/glass bottles to used plastic prophylactics (which I delicately place in my trash bag with the aid of a branch found on a [thank God!] tree-filled environment).

FYI, below my accounting of yours truly's encounter with human-made "let's throw 'em out, wherever/whatever, even if the shit is homo 'sapiens' objects."

Pardon the gory details, but here's the trash/litter/junk I find (and pick up, whenever I physically can) on a near-daily basis on the streets/Rock Creek park of our glorious nation's capital:

• Receipts/bills; paper/paper "tissues": napkins (evidently from from fast-food joints); paper bags containing the remains of "junk food"; "colorful" wrappings from candy manufacturers; cellophane plastic wrap
• Dumped-wherever-on-the street/sidewalk, no longer "reusable" disposable coffee cups (sorry: I don't know: what are they exactly made of, hardened paper with a touch of plastic?)  Here's the answer I found on: 

• Though they are made largely of paper, disposable coffee cups are lined with plastic polyethylene, which is tightly bonded to the paper making the cups waterproof and therefore able to contain liquid. In addition, the difficulty of recycling coffee cups is increased by the fact they are contaminated with drink: [image from cited article] 

 

• Circular plastic lids punctured, in the middle, for use with plastic straws for "soft" drinks, cold coffee (?), etc.
• Plastic straws (related to the above): Yes, they're still out there -- lonely motionless plastic worms in our wide open American spaces, often stuck into the ground/trash-infested mud -- despite the DC gov's efforts to limit their use.

• Zach Rybarczyk, who works for the D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, inspects restaurants in Union Station on Jan. 8 to see whether they are still using plastic straws after the city’s ban went into effect this year. Cava passed its inspection. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)

• Plastic zipper bags (I suspect from super markets/grocery stores), mostly empty, but often containing crumbs from the consumed food they enveloped
• Cans (mostly for so-called "soft drinks"/beer), often flattened by street traffic and found mostly on curbs
• Glass bottles (again, mostly for beer, but also for "hard" alcohol); Corona appears to be a favorite, often with empty bottles left on Tilden Street (past Connecticut Avenue) in a six-pack cardboard container slightly hidden in its sidewalk/wooded area
• Remains from junk food bags/containers: plastic knives/forks/spoons; ketchup/other food additives (to give the "food" taste) in relatively small white plastic (not always) rectangular receptacles (half the size of my thumb) with a "slip-off" cover
• Other miscellaneous plastic/elastic objects: combs, ballpoint pens, used /slimy prophylactics, credit cards, rubber bands
• Newspaper pages, in whole on in part, left/dumped on the street/sidewalks (many of which are evidently unread)
• Cardboard, often the largest litter in term of individual size. (Do we have Amazon to thank for this influx of oversize cardboard in our relatively "open" spaces of the imperial capital?)
• Empty cigarette packs, mostly of the "menthol" type; my bad: I don't pick up cigarette butts
• Metal/wire clothes hangers
• Gloves: A real litter discovery for me! Amazing how many gloves (many of them, often "single," are made of plastic)
• Scooters: I not-so-gently push these unregulated atrocious "affordable transportation" gimmicks, exploiting (tax-free?) off city space; btw, in urban spaces, it's called a sidewalk, not a sidescooter

• Excuoooose me, but I consider scooters steel/iron/rubber litter, especially if not unregulated on park trails/sidewalks. Their drivers are violently -- yes, mentally violently (I can't think of another word) and narcissistically (correct spelling?) me-me-me first. The mentality behind the free-wheeling scoots: Just leave my groovy "thing" behind wherever/whenever on trails/sidewalks; in other words, to put it violently (if I may interpret the mentality) - f...k you (pointing the finger), I'll leave my thing wherever/whenever I f...kin' feel/like. (Note, BTW, are not where the scooters "ride" on tax-payer funded sidewalks/parks, where the scooters-riders abandon their tax-free things on D.C. streets/trails?; also their travelling gadgets (and how really "safe" are they?) are dumped free of charge in parks in pedestrian areas called trails  -- complete eye-sores in a "God-bless-pristine Mother Nature setting."Various car parts, left near/on a sidewalk/curb (especially car wheels, hard to fit in a city trash bin)

• Dog shit (pardon my language, I meant pooh) in (usually green) plastic wrappings left "wherever" by evidently well intentioned animal masters who don't want to be accused of leaving shit behind them without the proper plastic embellishment. (Of course some pooh appears  plastic-free, "naturally" in lawns, sidewalks. Pretty gross, even if you are "green.")
• I initially refused -- for health reasons -- to pick up this plastic-covered shit, but broke down and am now putting the plastic-covered poo in my plastic litter bag. BTW, I recently  bumped into an evidently cultivated lady of a certain age on my near-daily trash adventure in our so-called "upscale"neighborhood who said, when I saw her picking up dog shit, "If I don't pick up this pooh, who will?" 

• Kids' toys, usually minuscule and made of plastic -- Is that not the most unacceptable litter "left behind"? Poor kids

[Note: Given my failing memory, I may be missing, in the below numerical assessment, a plastic water bottle or two.]

Needless to say, the plastic water bottles in NW DC I stumble upon end up in the public garbage receptacles in the National Park/along Connecticut Avenue.

**

BUT NOW THE SERIOUS PART! STATISTICS!!!

Enjoy the  Statistics: LPU (Litter Plastic Pick-up) in the Imperial Capital

Date [missing dates mean no strolling/jogging on that day]; no. of plastic water bottles pick ups [on a given day, I may have miscounted, plus or minus, by a bottle or two]

4/22--15

4/24--eight

4/25--five

4/26--six

4/27--two

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5/3--seven

5/4--five

5/5--4.5 (one bottle was broken in half)

5/6--five (one bottle found on Conn Av after my jog)

5/7--six (including one half-filled bottle on the roof of a car parked in Rock Creek Park; and an empty Perrier plastic bottle -- vive la France! -- along Porter Street)

5/9--two (found on Connecticut Avenue)

5/11 --ten!!! The most bottles found since 4/22! ) Porter Street wins with the most plastic bottles!

4/22-5/18--81.5 empty/half empty H20 plastic bottles picked up in the NW section of the Imperial Capital! A World Record!!! (hah, hah, hah) (Please correct my math, unprofessional reporting) No wonder USA is no. 1! 

5/19--one (One plastic water bottle found during a stroll on Connecticut Avenue) 

5/22--two (If my memory serves me right)

5/26--11! Another record plastic water bottle pick-up day!!! 11!!! [see April 11, which held the previous record -- 10] Eleven plastic empty/near empty water bottles picked up (including one, nearly full of urine, on the Tilden Street divider as it leads down to Rock Creek east past Connecticut Avenue!) 

5-27--four, including a Perrier plastic bottle (again, vive la France!) and the first such plastic "water" bottle found by your favorite scavenger: vitamin water)

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5/30-- eight plastic water bottles [pwbs] found! I could hardly contain my joy (no, I won't say disgust) at such an exciting discovery ...

***

6/1-- nine pwbs found -- all on Connecticut Avenue (including four in a brown paper bag)

6/2-- three pwbs found -- two on Tilden Street
6/4-- another three pwbs! One right outside the Czech embassy (located closely next Rock Creek Park) and another, half-full (of water, not urine), along Tilden Street (btw, it's quite amazing how quite a few of these pwbs still contain H20); American wasteful habits at their best? ... Special late evening item! While taking yet another stroll on Connecticut Avenue, I found the following pwb, with the label: "PURIFIED WATER enhanced with minerals for a pure, fresh taste DaSani ... plant bottle" Speaking of "objets trouvés": on the sidewalk along Porter Street, I stumble across the following calling card: "Middle Tennessee State University [Chinese characters] Confucius Institute [Chinese characters] Jack Zhao, Ph.D., Associate Director [Chinese characters; address and phone/email follow] 

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6/5--Two pwbs picked up: (a) one -- "mini-sized" and half full on the wall of the Kuwait embassy on Tilden Street (b) two -- a real find: WAIĀKEA water.  From its homepage:

Completely isolated from the rest of the world, WAIĀKEA offers purity in its ultimate, untainted form. 2,400 miles from the nearest industrial landmass and surrounded by 10 million square miles of ocean, WAIĀKEA volcanic water originates in Hawai’i through both snowmelt and rain on the pristine snowcapped peak of the active Mauna Loa volcano, one of the purest environments on Earth. WAIĀKEA is then filtered through thousands of feet of porous lava rock before re-emerging at its source, located at the eastern base of the Mauna Loa volcano in a secluded area surrounded by rich and bio-diverse forest preserves. 

  

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6/6--Three pwbs.  Among them another quite unique find, "Wegman's Purified Water," the label of which states: "With minerals added for taste ... Ingredients: Purified Water, Potassium Bicarbonate, Sodium  Bicarbonate, Calcium Citrate, Sodium Cloride, Magnesium Oxide"

6/7--Six pwbs. Among them, two pwbs containing a yellowish liquid that could Sig only be considered urine. Location of these pwbs: One just outside the Kuwait embassy on Tilden Street, the other along Porter Street.  Finally one pwb that I had never seen before: Signature refreshe Spring Water (shown below as part of a six-pack) 

***

P.S. But look at these statistics on the bright side: We Americans are now evidently drinking a source of life, water (or so it's labelled by some liquid-peddling corporations), rather than sugary soda bubbly once-canned "drinks" (Hey, people, listen: things don't always go better with Coke or beer) ... And we (the fair sex included) don't need public toilets to urinate from our water-filled kidneys, just use 'em empty plastic water bottles!

[See: "Can Women Pee in a Bottle While Backpacking?... Believe it or not, urinating in a bottle is your best solution, regardless of the situation. Although most of us don't have quite the aiming capability that guys do, with a little practice we can develop pretty good control over our urine stream—enough to pee into a wide-mouth water bottle if we can get it up close to us."]

Now, if we could only gastronomically chew on our omnipresent dumped-over-everywhere plastic items in a family-friendly restaurant, tastier than can ever be imagined if spiced with a popular Heinz ketchup, if your stomach can stand it ...