The Litter Guy Cleans Up Belmont

By Patrick O’Dougherty

Photos by Mary Bradley

As a boy, I became aware of seeing litter almost everywhere. Among the many things we did and learned about as Boy Scouts was public service. Picking up litter was one of our services. In the 1970s, a targeted ad campaign seemed to diminish the amount of litter in public spaces.

Adulthood has taken me in many different directions, and litter wasn’t something about which I thought. About 20 years ago, I fell in love with cycling and I began to notice litter again. Lots of it. Apparently, litter is back.

My memories of boyhood service called to me. Equipped with a 30-gallon yellow trash bag with a shoulder strap, a pointy-tipped spear, a pair of pincers that are good enough to pick up cigarette butts, and a bright yellow safety vest to protect me from traffic, I began picking up litter in Belmont over a year and a half ago.

The most common litter I find is water bottles, nips, cigarette butts, styrofoam Dunkin Donut cups, fast-food containers, and, recently, used masks and gloves. Each road, though, has its unique trash and, occasionally, I find street and yard signs and large construction parts.

I spend about an hour a couple of times a month picking up litter. The areas I clean include:

• Pleasant Street from Trapelo Road to past Cityside Subaru. Pleasant Street catches a lot of litter from Star Market parking lot, and a lot of windblown litter, due to its location. Pleasant Street’s signature litter includes grocery cart wipes and newspaper flyers.
• Mill Street from Trapelo to the intersection with Concord Ave. The parking lot at Beaver Brook Reservation seems to attract a lunch and smoking crowd as evidenced by the litter.
• Concord Avenue from Mill Street to the Lexington town line. I find more litter on the stretches of Concord Avenue and Mill Street. With no houses nearby, people seem to think that these areas are the best places to litter.
• I pulled a toilet tank out of the Concord Avenue wetlands mud. A propane tank, half underwater, and some other plastic bins remain in the mud about 20 to 30 feet from the road.
• White Street from Belmont Street to Trapelo has a lot of cigarette butts in addition to common trash.
• Trapelo Road from Dunkin Donuts to Cushing Square. Both areas collect an abundance of trash. There are cigarette butts clustered at bus stops, and the construction at Cushing Square seems to have brought in a lot of trash from the workers.
• I am beginning to try and spread awareness of this littering problem and hopefully initiate some action.

Picking up litter has gone very well. Fall, winter, and early spring are the best times to see and grab litter that is in the bushes and plant life. Summer is good for more open, visible roadsides. At the urging of some friends, I started a Facebook page and named it “The Litter Guy.” I also put that name on the back of my safety vest. Facebook and my vest are the only public relations actions I’ve taken thus far.

Patrick (Pat) O’Dougherty works as a scientist for a small company in Watertown. He has lived in this area his entire life, and in Belmont for the last eight years.