Pages

Sunday, March 10, 2019

The Nip Bottle Problem, Part III


Meriden enjoyed a warm, sunny Saturday, but overnight the weather was forecast to turn precipitous. Viewing east over the city from the Halfway House.

Visit #1183, Saturday 9 March 19, 3:30-5:05PM, 3.3 miles, 4lbs. of trash.
Temps in the low 50's, sunny.

The last two weeks I've been posting on the state of Connecticut considering increasing the variety of items subject to a bottle/can deposit, including nip bottles. The Meriden Record Journal reported a problem with nips littering the Meriden Green, and I wrote about my experience proving the theory that nip litter is definitely a problem.

After last week, I thought it would be back to normal and I would blog about other things. But circumstances returned me to the nip-o-sphere.

With warm temps resulting in mushy snow on the trails, I didn't expect to find much litter as only the heartiest of hikers would be out on the trails.


On the return leg to the park as I crossed over I-691, I discovered the torn American flag I recently removed over the eastbound lanes of the highway, had been replaced by the mysterious flag-replacer.


Whoever does this is pretty detail-oriented based on the extra, evenly spaced and reinforced grommets affixed to the flag as well as the double zip-ties.


Then I found my first nip bottle; a portent of things to come.


As I returned to the parking lot I'd only spent an hour and a quarter. I prefer to hold myself to a two hour minimum, so I chose to spend 45 minutes walking the various roads around the park and picking up trash.

My route led to the greenhouse, where I found a small bag of trash. Among the items was this letter:


Seems poor Alfred failed to get his Timberland shoes warrantied, without success. I like to think it was a case of preexisting karma for dumping his trash in the park. Alfred also needed a new starter for his Nissan Sentra, which he purchased from Chuck and Eddy's for $52.

Over at the greenhouse itself, I discovered more nip bottles.


To complete my rounds, I walked the road around the playscape, where the hits kept coming.




A nip bottle deposit can't come soon enough.


No comments:

Post a Comment