Today was a rough day. When I started out my goal was four bags of plastics. I ended with three and the delightful trashcan I found at the bottom. Since there was no way I was taking that home, I filled it with non-recyclables. Spray paint cans, electronics duster cans, a VCR, a walking pole, a golf club handle, a folding chair, large pieces of a gigantic styrofoam airplane and some flashlights. The trashcan also was further down the mountain then anything else I collected today, so I filled it on my way up.
This is a type of millipede commonly found at the knob. This and other arthropods, like insects, are just one of the reasons I can not stand trash out in the woods. Garbage, especially cans and bottles, kill them. If a bottle or can is thrown out anywhere in a natural area and still has contents in it, the contents act as an attractant and the container acts as a trap. Same thing goes for small rodents as well. You might not like insects or rodents, but in their natural environment they have their own specific job to do, so they need to be there.
When I found this today I thought it was just a plastic water bottle, then I turned it over and learned it is "A GLOBAL FORCE FOR GOOD". Couldn't figure out how to activate it so it went in with the plastics.
A couple years back I found a gold ring at the bottom when collecting cans. Today I thought I found a fake silver necklace. Then I picked it up. It's a real silver necklace and I have no clue how it ended up in this placement and not at the bottom of a rock pile. Please if your relationship goes south, scrap your jewelry don't throw it off of a cliff.
This shows another problem I have with these trash areas. The clear bottle with the white ring has been chewed on by some critter. Whatever the contents were inside something wanted it. In an upcoming post I will put up some photos of other sites where I collect cans, where porcupines find them and try to get at the contents. In that specific situation, I know the porcupines are swallowing aluminum shards because I have found them in porcupine scat piles. In this case I am pretty sure plastic isn't healthy for wildlife to be eating either.
Why? What are people using toilet cleaner for at the Knob? At this point I would like to mention any comments are welcome on this blog, I do have a filter on just to eliminate unwanted links and ads. Best guesses on this though would be great.
This light had a rough life.
At the Bottom.
Half way up.
Back at the parking lot. Normally I would not just leave trash here. I think doing this promotes others leaving trash there as well. The trashcan is all that I left there and I do take all of the recyclables with me to be properly disposed. The other bag trash is from other individuals who clean up the top. Apparently they do contact local groups to pick it up, but the majority of this pile has been sitting there since last week. One nice thing about today was that two people at different times asked me if I wanted help carrying the stuff out. I declined both offers today, explaining the contents were not the best smelling items, but I did thank them for the offer. Someone asked me the other day as well which I forgot to mention in a previous post. I was asked today if I was paid for this and the person who asked seemed surprised when I said no. They were under the impression that the Knob is some sort of park that has paid people to clean it up. I explained that it is Game Commission property and they don't have the funds to do anything like that. I think a little bit of education would go a long way at least for the trash the day hikers leave behind.
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