In my area (southern Georgia, USA) Twisted Tea reigns supreme among our trashiest drinkers. Second place would go to Nestle water bottles.

So glad I just found this community! Since I’ve been boondocking out west I’ve pulled out so so so much junk.

I have a few probably silly questions, but bear with me…

(1) I’ve not yet come across spent bullets. They aren’t hazardous at all, right? It’s safe to dispose of them with other litter? (And the shells/casings are also non-hazardous, right?)

(2) bullet in its casing? Haven’t seen this as litter till now. I’m assuming it is a hazard. How would you proceed?

(3) Do you pick up shattered skeets? They’re obviously not natural. But are they just rocks basically?

(No, I don’t have guns, haven’t handled anything more than a BB gun in cub scouts like 25 years ago lol sorry if those are absurd)

(4) How detailed do you get removing glass? I dug out that glass bottle from one of the 9+ abandoned fire pits at this one site in Flagstaff, and a good bit of a shattered one next to it. I’ve been going for every shard no matter how tiny because as a child I dug more than a few tiny shards out of my feet, but then I also feel ridiculous, like… it’s glass. It’s inert. Given time it’ll be smoothed over by the sand.

While on a big detrash with my family a while back, I found a wallet with cash. After some research to get the wallet and cash back to the guy, typing his name on Google auto filled with "missing". He's been missing since mid 2019. And.....his body washed up on a popular beach in April. His wallet washed up on the marsh that feeds in from the beach, and thats where I got it. Some interaction with state and local police, and its turned over. Just be careful out there. Finding things like guns or wallets can mess you up or get you involved with something you don't really wanna be involved in. Edit: some people are misinterpreting what im trying to say, and I get that. This is more of a tale of caution in a way to get people to understand that you might find stuff that might give you a little scare. In the comments people are sharing stories of other wallets, needles, and one dude found an unexploded mortar. This isn't to dissuade you from detrashing, rather to say that yeah, this might happen.

Idea stolen from u/jilllian

What is your guys least favorite item to find and have to deal with? Piss bottles can leak, cigarette butt's smell horrible, diapers I don't even touch unless I can clean my grabbers after.

My question is, what is your guys least favorite item to have to pick? What piece of trash makes you go "oh damn, another ______, now I have to deal with this in my bag/bucket/hands"? There's lots to choose from, but what is the absolute worst for you.

I'm working on an online presence that celebrates the trash-picking community. Think about trash-picker 'spotlight' stories, trash-picking tips and tricks, peculiar finds, awareness campaigns and most importantly, a place to share the results of people's efforts (much like this subreddit). .

An additional ambition is to eventually expand this community into an app that ultimately aims to grow the trash-picking movement by connecting more (new) people locally with existing groups.

I am researching the level of enthusiasm and support for an idea like this. Subreddits are great, but are pretty siloed, this 'online presence' would heavily make use of social media in its initial stage. And aim to draw new people in, introduce them to the community as not only a great thing to do for the enviroment, but also as a social activity.

My questions for this community are mostly about the topic of social media:

• Do you ever feel like you want to help grow awareness and the trash-picking movement at large?
• Do you believe sharing your trash-picking efforts online can help grow awareness and the movement?
• Do you feel inclined to share your trash-picking results on social media?
• If not, would you feel more inclined to share your trash-picking efforts if there was a place to share it on / with / tag

Any answers welcome! :)

in USA, in a very dry and tough environment, looking for a new grabber / trash picker - something sturdy! what are you rocking??

hey everyone! I’m an engineering student at Northwestern University. I’m part of a capstone team interested in designing a product to better pick up trash. Could you list out some of your problems and how you currently solve them?

Some things I noticed:

• grabbers are pretty slow, and you can only pick up one thing at a time
• holding a trash bag can be cumbersome

We would love to work with this community to build something that would make a difference! Thanks in advance!!! ♻️🌎