Over the years, some have ‘cleaned up’ at Green Up Day

Trying to find someone more committed to cleaning up Charlotte’s roads than Ken Spencer would be a fool’s errand.

He walks picking up trash almost every day; he developed and sells an open-faced backpack he invented for easily picking up and carrying litter on the nonprofit website planetpeople.org; he frequently posts new original poems about picking up litter on social media; and he is the town’s representative to the Chittenden Solid Waste District.

And since 2017 he has been co-coordinating with Kim Findlay the town’s crusade against litter on Green Up Day. This Saturday, May 3, even a fool would know that rain wouldn’t deter their efforts for the 55th anniversary of the statewide effort to rid Vermont roads of refuse.

They were not alone. The rain, which began just after the 9 a.m. kickoff of the cleaning-up campaign, did not seem to abate the efforts of the many enthusiastic volunteers.

“The rain seemed not to matter. Spirits were high, and I saw no diminishment of anything,” Spencer said.

In Charlotte, the effort is held in concert with Sustainable Charlotte, which had, as usual, a panel truck and volunteers collecting electronics for recycling. Louis Cox, Ruah Swennerfelt and Wolfger Schneider were helping a steady stream of people arriving with no-longer-wanted electronics equipment to unload, while trying to keep the driveway clear for those coming to pick up empty or drop off full green bags.

One of those picking up green bags for trash pickup was farmer Steve Schubart of Grass Cattle Company, who said he has been picking up trash on Green Up Day since he was old enough for his mother to get him out on the roads.

As a young person, his enthusiasm for picking up trash surged after he found a $20 bill.

Schubart laughed and admitted that some of the detritus might have blown off his own vehicle: “To be fair, I’m probably cleaning up some of my own mess.”

Several years ago, this reporter interviewed a young girl in the Hinesburg Town Hall who said Green Up Day was litterly … oops, make that literally … her favorite holiday. Even in the rain in the parking lot of Charlotte Central School this year, there was a festivity among volunteers. In more than five decades, Green Up Day has become a well-loved tradition, very much akin to a holiday.

One of those dispensing green bags and keeping track of which roads in Charlotte had been cleaned up was Elizabeth Bassett, who remembers Green Up Day from its beginnings in 1970.

Her father became a huge fan or the event early on because he noted how many Budweiser cans there were in the litter he picked up. This inspired him to buy stock in Anheuser-Busch. It proved to be a very fruitful investment. She remembers her dad saying to her for years, “Can you believe how much money I made because of Green Up Day?”

Greg Ranallo, owner of Teachers Tree Service, said he had realized while picking up trash Saturday that he was a “litter racist” because, when he sees an empty can of Budweiser or other cheaper beer, he assumes someone threw it there. But, when he sees a craft beer container, he assumes it must have blown off someone’s vehicle.

Probably while they were on their way to the redemption center.

Tony Federico showed up at the Green Up Day table with the happy news that he had gone to pickup on Wildwood West and Stonewall Lane and “there was not a speck of trash.” Kudos to that neighborhood.

The vehicles with volunteers and bags of trash were every bit as steady as the rainfall. Spencer said they filled two dump trucks with green bags of trash on Saturday.

“My favorite part is seeing happy, familiar faces full of pride, and catching up with folks I have not seen,” he said. But also, the donuts.