Cleanliness is next to, um, the water?

Today was a day that let us feel pretty good about ourselves. After a late breakfast/early brunch with friends, we rode our bikes down to Astoria Park, where we joined in the Astoria/LIC Shoreline Cleanup. Yeah, it kind of needed it, being bordered on one side by a walkway with not enough trashcans (not to mention a startling number of people who seem not to understand the concept of putting garbage in a can), and on the other by the Hell Gate, through which garbage barges are towed on a frequent basis, and if you think all the garbage stays on the barges, well, no.

Signing up got us a little sticker we could put on our shirts, which entitled us to pizza later on. We divided up into teams, and assigned ourselves various responsibilities, and got to work. Over 70 people, 3 ½ hours – it was pretty amazing. I thought I would save myself 11,954 words or so, so here are a few photos. (I have fixed the layout a little but, but I'm still not terribly happy with it. Whatever a picture's worth, it doesn't necessarily save any time.)

Before:


After:

Before:

After:

Detritus of vices and pleasures:

Parks picked some of it up:

It's in the bags:

Awaiting Godot, Jr.?:

Just another piece of trash:

When the trashcan is trash:

Discarded animals, too:

In the end, much improved: