Trails Committee member Steve Schneider helps clear trash off Emery Street. Photo: Melanie Taylor
Trash Cleanups: ‘Show Up and Love Where You Live’
By Lee Burnett
Swarms of volunteers and city employees dragged the abandoned remains of multiple campsites out of the woods off Emery Street on Saturday.
A mini-excavator, front-end loader, and farm tractor did the heavy lifting, while folks on foot combed the underbrush with trash grabbers and rakes. After several hours, a 30-yard dumpster was filled to the brim with mattress springs, tents, pillows, food wrappers, clothing, syringes, and all manner of clothing and construction debris.
“It feels really, really good actually,” said Dave Lee, manager of Northeast Coating Technologies, owner of the property. “I was humbled by the amount of people that showed up and the heavy equipment and the dumpster.”
Together, Sanford Trails Committee and Strengthening Mind and Body Hiking Group mobilized more than 20 volunteers. The Parks and Recreation Department mustered several employees.
The cleanup was one of several that have been done in recent weeks. More are planned, in part to recognize Earth Day on April 22.
Trails Committee member Forest Nohr loads trash into a truck. Photo: Lee Burnett
City councilors Pete Tranchemontagne and Cheeny Plante have organized roadside litter patrols for the last three weekends on Route 109 in south Sanford. Some six and a half truckloads of trash has been collected from both sides of the road between Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport and the Wells town line, according to Tranchemontagne. The volunteer force grew to more than 20 people last week, and several airport employees helped as well, he said.
“It’s good to know there are a lot of people that care,” he said. “I didn’t see that before.” He said he saw Plante picking up trash on her own and decided to team up with her because he was repulsed by the amount of litter he saw. “It’s disgusting,” he said.
The next cleanup is scheduled for 10 am Saturday, April 18. The meeting place is the Walmart parking lot. The target area for cleanup is Route 99 in front of Rosenfield Development.
“Our big thing is – it’s just an hour. Fill a bag. If it’s too heavy, leave it. We’ll get it. No one goes alone.
It’s a great way to meet community members,” said Tranchemontagne.
In addition to these pickups, four volunteers from the Sanford Rotary Club and Sanford Springvale Beautification Program cleaned up litter at the Route 4/Route 109 Roundabout on April 4. Another cleanup is scheduled for 7 am Saturday, May 2.
The Sanford Clean Air & Water Coalition plans a park cleanup April 25. The group is conducting an informal poll on social media to prioritize which parks to clean first, according to organizer Eve Dumont-Wilson. The park around Number One Pond was the leading candidate earlier in the week.
“Basically, we’re going to hit them all,” she said. “So our kids can have clean playgrounds and green spaces … We’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I have two kids. We go to parks.”
The group plans to pick up litter, scrub out graffiti, and sponge down the slides and seats of swings. They will support volunteers with light refreshments, a table and handwashing station, games and balls for kids. They are encouraging people to bring a picnic lunch.
The group, which has mobilized residents concerned about the biosolids gasification plan proposed by Aries Clean Technologies, said the trash cleanup aligns with the group’s focus on a clean environment.
“We’re doing this for people to show up and love where you live,” Dumont-Wilson said.
Organizers of campsite cleanups say they’re daunted by the challenge ahead. “There’s more work to do,” said Sam Parady, chair of the Sanford Trails Committee. “Many of us are concerned at the scale of the encampments. We acknowledge that without the addition of equipment and a dumpster, it would have been extremely challenging, if not impossible for us to do.”
Parady said committee members plan at least one more cleanup effort, but he worried that volunteer capacity is limited. “We expect this could happen again. That’s a concern,” he said. “Obviously, we’ll do what we can.”
Property owner Dave Lee said he is extremely frustrated that it took a month and a half to bring attention to the problem at City Hall and what seems like an unending challenge ahead. Police enforcement seems ineffective because court reluctance to sanction low-level crimes, such as trespass, he said. “We can’t do anything,” he said. “It seems like there are six crimes homeless people can commit that no one else can.”
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