To the Editor:
Two weeks after the Annual Charles River Cleanup, April 29, I went back to the area behind the Stop & Shop, 700 Pleasant Street. On the day of the Cleanup, members of Watertown Citizens for Peace Justice and the Environment hauled from the banks of the river bags and bags of trash, including a large car part identified as a catalytic converter. By noon the area looked immaculate.
On my follow-up visit, trash had started to re-accumulate. Back again along the banks were scatterings of sanitizing wipes and advertising flyers. We shoppers can do better and dispose of wipes in trash receptacles rather than leaving them in the carts to blow away. Anything left in a shopping cart wheeled to the parking lot is bound to take flight. Empty plastic bags take off at the slightest wind. Please remember that beginning July 1, 2017, a matter of weeks, the Bring Your Own Bag Ordinance goes into effect. At next year’s Annual Charles River Cleanup, volunteers should expect to find less plastic trash.
For this year’s event, Stop & Shop became an official “Cleanup Friend” of the Charles River Watershed Association. The supermarket also provided refreshments of bananas, oranges and granola bars for volunteers, while Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment offered tap water in a crock – better for the environment than single use plastic water bottles. This is the second year that Stop & Shop partnered with Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment for the event. That partnership will continue next year at the 19th Annual Charles River Cleanup.
Katherine Button
Watertown Resident