Christian Gonzalez, a 14-year-old teenager and resident of Lynn, was walking under the Shepard Street commuter rail bridge when he saw a small bunny eating food wastes left on a foam plate discarded on the sidewalk.
The rabbit spotted Christian and quickly fled. He watched as it jumped over
an old television shell that appeared to be abandoned. An idea popped in his head: “I’ll pick up some of the trash under this bridge.”
He grabbed an old cardboard box under the bridge and in short order filled it with trash including glass and discarded wood with nails sticking out of the boards.
The Shepard Street underpass wasn’t the first place Christian, an athlete, musician and rookie YouTuber, collected trash. A young man with a keen sense of environmental awareness, he had dedicated hours to cleanup efforts before spotting the rabbit under the bridge. He even has a cleanup motto: “We pick up whatever does not belong on the Earth.”
But his impromptu West Lynn collection turned out to be a warm-up for participating in early spring Lynn cleanups, including one organized on March 23.
The cleanup brought together Christian and 11 other local Hispanic residents motivated by the trending #TrashTag Challenge and Without Borders Magazine’s appeal through social media for people to get out and clean streets, parks and vacant lots.
Alejandra Barrenche of Lynn was one of the cleanup participants. “In Colombia,” she said, “there are a lot of green cities, for example, even in the train stations we have recycling containers, and the youth are encouraged to recycle. By recycling, they can receive a free train pass, and there is always enough containers to place plastic and glass.”
The early spring cleanup sparked more spring cleanups, and city Associate Public Works Commissioner Lisa Nerich added her valued expertise to aid the efforts. Her support was incredible and the first cleanup challenge concluded on May 21.
At the end of this campaign, 190 bags of waste were collected totaling five tons of garbage with a total of 292 hours of volunteer work dedicated. The campaign included removing trash from High Rock Park to enhance the Highland overlook’s beauty.
There is no doubt that community involvement is making progress in the city when it comes to clean ups. Lynn city councilors enhanced these efforts by making Earth Day week visits to local schools to talk about the environment.
There is much more to be done, including empowering environmental crimes task forces and looking at ticketing and fines for littering.
At the 17th Annual Summit of the Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations, I heard a representative of a renowned tribal group say, “To understand the dynamic of trash we have to understand more about who is throwing it and who is picking it up, that is to say, both of these people must be analyzed and those who need help, must be helped — Education is key.”
Those are words to live by.
The summer is long, we need more green efforts from the citizens and every volunteer is more than welcome to keep Lynn clean!
Juan Gonzalez is an environmental campaign volunteer organizer. He is the founder of Without Borders Magazine, which can be followed @WithoutBordersMagazine and can be reached at [email protected].