A little more than 1,700 volunteers boated and hiked around Lake Allatoona last weekend, cleaning out garbage that lined its shoreline or floated in its waters.
Multiple troops of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts participated in the cleanup, in addition to another 60 or 70 other organizations that sent volunteers or donated materials or services, according to Linda Hartsfield, a retired park ranger who serves as a recruitment director of the Great Lake Allatoona Cleanup.
One of the young Scouts, 11-year-old Ethan Wren of Cub Scout Pack 220 based out of Kennesaw United Methodist Church, spent the first half of his day scouring the lakeside for garbage to retrieve.
“I found some trash, and I’m going to keep it, because it is this little army man. It’s pretty dirty right now, but it’s always a good idea to not throw everything out because we’ve got to reduce, reuse, recycle,” Wren said, shifting gears and tone suddenly, almost edging into a tone of anger.
“Everywhere, there’s more pollution and pollution and pollution, and it’s actually poisoning our planet. And we’ve got to stop global warming, because that’s just heating up our planet, which means that, literally, eventually, our planet is just going to cook! … So we’ve got to start acting now to save our planet!”
While fixing global problems like climate change and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (a vortex of garbage floating in the ocean that is twice the size of the state of Texas) might seem overwhelming, local and regional efforts like the Great Lake Allatoona Cleanup do make a difference, Hartsfield said.
“Would it benefit everyone to keep the shoreline clean for everybody to enjoy?” she asked the Cub Scouts.
“Yes!” they chorused.
“Why else did we talk about why we want to keep the shoreline clean?”
“Because of the animals!”
“What about the animals?”
“They accidentally eat trash and get sick!”
Hartsfield, who also serves on the Lake Allatoona Association Board, said she will not know for a few more days how many tons of garbage the volunteers pulled from the lake, because now that the garbage has been gathered and bagged, other volunteers will follow the shorelines in boats to collect and finally weigh it. In past years, the amount has ranged from a few tons to more than 10 tons, depending on the water levels and other factors such as how much human traffic the lake has had.
This year’s cleanup went smoothly, not in small part due to the weather, which was brilliantly sunny, but not too hot, with low humidity, Cub Scout 220 Pack Leader Ken Adamson said. Last year’s cleanup went so well that the pack had to shift their efforts from Windy Waters to Proctor Landing Park this year, Adamson said.
Beth Wren, Ethan’s mother, said she and the children enjoyed their time near the lake.
“The day’s been really great,” she said. “We’ve had a great time walking around and picking up trash. We’re going to do another round this afternoon — we just got back from a 1-mile hike where we talked about lots of different criteria of Scouting.”
Credit: Marietta Daily Journal
Credit: Marietta Daily Journal
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