WHAT HAVE WE PICKED UP FROM THE FREEWAYS DURING A TRASHATHON???

BACK

THE ORDINARY STUFF

About 10% of what we pick up is recyclable plastic and glass bottes and aluminum cans! If we included the recyclable paper and cardboard,
I believe about 60% of what we pick up could be recycled]

 

MILLIONS of cigarette butts!

Hundreds of empty cigarette packets

[Some smokers are such slobs]

newspapers
notebook paper
letters, bills, envelopes
shopping lists
credit cards
drivers licenses
signs
books
pens and pencils

 

plastic bags
paper bags
water and soda bottles
liquor bottles
junk food packaging
juice boxes
beer and soda cans
Styrofoam containers
drinks cups, straws, and lids
napkins

 

Lots and lots of balls, including

soccer balls
tennis balls
beach balls
volley balls

 

toys
stuffed animals [Photos below]
CDs, DVDs, video tapes
disposable cameras

 

Lots of car parts, including
many, many hubcaps
license plates

tires

windshields (usually shattered)
bumpers
cables, bolts, and belts

An auto windshield, cracked, complete with the rubber gasket
Tools: hammers, pliers, staple guns, wrenches, rakes, dust pans, screw drivers

 

All kinds of clothing:

[A lot of the dirty but usable clothing we take home, wash, and give to a local charity]

sweatshirts
jeans and other pants
swimsuits
t-shirts

vests
shoes and boots

hats and caps
gloves
sunglasses

rings, earrings, necklaces

underwear (men's and women's)
a black panty girdle
used diapers (really!)

 

pillows
blankets
sofa cushions

towels

 

plastic and metal buckets

pieces of heating ducts
insulation
cardboard boxes
lumber of all sizes and shapes
carpeting

sheetrock

 

 

THE EXTRAORDINARY STUFF

[Some photos at the bottom of the page]

 

Several unopened rolls of paper towels

An unopened 100-count package of napkins
A broken computer printer

A broken computer monitor

A broken television
A chocolate cake (smashed)

A baked potato

A curly blond wig

 

Lots of parking tickets. Apparently some people think if they throw away parking tickets they don’t have to pay them


An *adorable* diorama in a shoebox showing dinosaurs in a tropical setting. Some child's school project!

A smashed video cassette that trailed tangled tape for 30 yards among the bushes

Two chest x-rays for Daniel M____ taken the day before the trash pickup at O'Connor Hospital. In the manila envelope, undamaged. We returned them to O'Conner Hospital. How the heck did they wind up on the side of the freeway?

A cover letter and a resume from a woman living in Berkeley who had left teaching and was looking for a job in the ministry. The letter was sent to a church in Los Altos and the two pages were found on the median strip of Meridian Avenue in San Jose near the Southwest Expressway. Oh, and the letter was dated 1988!

Hundreds of memo pads destined for the Maple Tree inn in Sunnvyale. A box containing them had broken open and the pads tore apart and scattered over hundreds of yards of freeway!

A cardboard box with six EMPTY plastic motor oil bottles
A *really* ugly tie [Photo below]
A size 46C black lace bra
A glass slipper (plastic actually) [Photo below]
An adorable wooden push-toy
An unopened package of Internet Security 2005 software – still in the shrink-rap

A blue plastic box full of old car parts [Photo below]
Three window frames, glass smahed out and obviously dumped! [Photo below]

An empty envelope with this note on the outside: "Danny -- Put 30.00 In Gas!  You Better Get a Job" [Imagine the story behind that!] [Photo below]

The skull of a small animal, perhaps a dog [Photo below]

A *very* old gun (reportedly a "ball and cap" gun)


A *very* old beer can (see photos below). You can see from the remains of the label it was a can of “Busch Bavarian Beer.” It had the old detachable pull-tab that was banned in the early 1970s. I did a little research at www.beercollections.com and learned that “Busch Bavarian Beer was introduced in 1955... In 1979 Anheuser-Busch dropped the word Bavarian from the brand name.” Based on that information, I’m guessing that beer can had been hiding in the ivy around The Alameda on-ramp for over 25 years!

  

 

A large hard black plastic Craftsman Toolbox full of power tools!

A rubber pig (no kidding! [Photo below]
A pillow in the shape of a fish [Photo below]


An open cardboard box containing a dozen glass beer bottles, full of beer, unopened! [Photo below]

 

 

MONEY!

We find money all the time on the freeway, usually dollar bills.

 

Sometimes we find more.

Sometimes we find a LOT more!

 

A $5 bill in a paper bag

 

Two $5 bills and a dollar bill folded into a receipt

 

A $20 bill in a McDonald's bag!

 

A phone card with 14 minutes left on it!

 

Four coins in a ten foot area that, while obviously quarters, were so bent, mangled and scarred as to be unusable (see photo below)

 

 

I found a $100 bill behind the yellow sand barrels between the Leland on-ramp and 280NB!

 

 

A $50 bill was found by a high school student working to get community service credits for high school graduation.

 

Working on Highway 17, a volunteer found a $100 bill. On the same day another volunteer working in the same area found another $100 bill and four $20 dollar bills!

 

Below is one day's "haul"

 

MORE PHOTOS HERE!

PHOTOS, PHOTOS, PHOTOS
Three photos of boxes with beer bottles -- still full -- left on the side of the road

Yes, that's an empty bottle on the gore point between the on-ramp and the freeway... just sitting there....

MORE PHOTOS HERE!