A Mission to Beautify our Communities w/ Daniel
Donazione protetta
Hi friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I have a proposal for you.
I was called the “trash guy” in college 10 years ago, because I initiated a project to clean up litter from the campus and creeks around NC State University.
It’s probably not so hard to imagine that spending my time outside getting exercise and making the environment more beautiful is something enjoyable. But over time, that developed into something more profound. Not just by giving me inner feelings of fulfillment and gratitude, but it also turned into something profound for the community at large. People deeply appreciate what I’m doing, and they often come up and thank me.
What I thought would be a few hundred bags of litter cleaned up from a college campus became several thousand trash bags and over 100 places transformed around the Triangle. Places around rivers and streams and greenways.
The profundity came when I realized the cost of leaving what I had found. Cans of toxic oil, ready to leak out into our streams. Mastics, paints, and pesticides. Full bags of herbicides. Peoples wallets and even a commercial safe.
By recovering these items and either properly disposing of them or returning them to their owners, I was participating in a healing process. I wasn’t just touching trash anymore. I was touching lives.
I go on lots of walks now. When I would go for a walk, my intention now is to improve that place for others. I clean up behind apartment complexes, around bus stops, on beaches, in rural neighborhoods, where illegal landfills have been created, along paved nature paths, along railroad tracks. Every place I have touched feels lighter, and as my grandmother put it after I cleaned up around her farm, “it feels like the woods can breathe again.”
I am growing older, and I’m working three jobs. And, I’m in search of a great gratitude where we all do things for one another. I believe in the possibilities of this world and in all of you. So here is my proposal.
I am beginning to open up my remediation endeavor to all of you, anyone, to contribute the talent or resources that they have to make this project The Best that it can be. I need allies to join me in whatever way you can.
Frugally, frugally I have cleaned up litter for years spending only about $3000 on costs and accomplishing almost that number of trash bags of litter collected. Roughly $2000 of that was spent on landfill fees for recycling about 2000 discarded tires I’ve collected.
Now, I invite you to be a part of this effort and to donate for the betterment of the world, and to help me pay for my next 2000 trash bags of litter cleaned up. I would love to buy a truck to be able to haul the trash myself. I am highly responsible with money and will put every penny you contribute to the best and highest use. I promise to use it wisely, whether it’s $5, $50, or $500. Thank you for joining me. I will post photos - before and after - of the work we do together.
With heartfelt thanks, Daniel
references Technician newspaper article
More about:
Here's a record of things collected by my estimates:
2800 trash bags of litter all large plastic bags
2 tons of metal recycled
About a hundred pieces of furniture (sofas, beds, office chairs, etc.)
At least 2000 tires (several illegal dumping sites of tires)
100 gallons of used motor oil
100? gallons of paint thinner
Mastic (a glue for concrete?), Lots of cans of paint, Open bags of pelletized pesticides, Liquid herbicides
Antifreeze bottles
Things returned:
Three wallets
Safe filled with valuables, passports, children's birth certificates
2 lost dogs
Keys
Also a winter coat (name was written in coat)
More than I can remember!
I was called the “trash guy” in college 10 years ago, because I initiated a project to clean up litter from the campus and creeks around NC State University.
It’s probably not so hard to imagine that spending my time outside getting exercise and making the environment more beautiful is something enjoyable. But over time, that developed into something more profound. Not just by giving me inner feelings of fulfillment and gratitude, but it also turned into something profound for the community at large. People deeply appreciate what I’m doing, and they often come up and thank me.
What I thought would be a few hundred bags of litter cleaned up from a college campus became several thousand trash bags and over 100 places transformed around the Triangle. Places around rivers and streams and greenways.
The profundity came when I realized the cost of leaving what I had found. Cans of toxic oil, ready to leak out into our streams. Mastics, paints, and pesticides. Full bags of herbicides. Peoples wallets and even a commercial safe.
By recovering these items and either properly disposing of them or returning them to their owners, I was participating in a healing process. I wasn’t just touching trash anymore. I was touching lives.
I go on lots of walks now. When I would go for a walk, my intention now is to improve that place for others. I clean up behind apartment complexes, around bus stops, on beaches, in rural neighborhoods, where illegal landfills have been created, along paved nature paths, along railroad tracks. Every place I have touched feels lighter, and as my grandmother put it after I cleaned up around her farm, “it feels like the woods can breathe again.”
I am growing older, and I’m working three jobs. And, I’m in search of a great gratitude where we all do things for one another. I believe in the possibilities of this world and in all of you. So here is my proposal.
I am beginning to open up my remediation endeavor to all of you, anyone, to contribute the talent or resources that they have to make this project The Best that it can be. I need allies to join me in whatever way you can.
Frugally, frugally I have cleaned up litter for years spending only about $3000 on costs and accomplishing almost that number of trash bags of litter collected. Roughly $2000 of that was spent on landfill fees for recycling about 2000 discarded tires I’ve collected.
Now, I invite you to be a part of this effort and to donate for the betterment of the world, and to help me pay for my next 2000 trash bags of litter cleaned up. I would love to buy a truck to be able to haul the trash myself. I am highly responsible with money and will put every penny you contribute to the best and highest use. I promise to use it wisely, whether it’s $5, $50, or $500. Thank you for joining me. I will post photos - before and after - of the work we do together.
With heartfelt thanks, Daniel
references Technician newspaper article
More about:
Here's a record of things collected by my estimates:
2800 trash bags of litter all large plastic bags
2 tons of metal recycled
About a hundred pieces of furniture (sofas, beds, office chairs, etc.)
At least 2000 tires (several illegal dumping sites of tires)
100 gallons of used motor oil
100? gallons of paint thinner
Mastic (a glue for concrete?), Lots of cans of paint, Open bags of pelletized pesticides, Liquid herbicides
Antifreeze bottles
Things returned:
Three wallets
Safe filled with valuables, passports, children's birth certificates
2 lost dogs
Keys
Also a winter coat (name was written in coat)
More than I can remember!
Organizzatore
Daniel Toben
Organizzatore
Chapel Hill, NC