After piles of trash continue to fill the streets in some neighborhoods, residents are taking matters into their own hands.<\/p>\n
Every Wednesday night, you\u2019ll find the Bushwick Trash Club walking the blocks of Bushwick, not just talking about the problem but picking it up. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe No. 1 thing is cigarette butts,\u201d said Erin McHugh. \u201cThat\u2019s everywhere. That\u2019s probably the most common thing. Cigarette butts, bottle caps. The second No. 1 thing would be the grocery fliers that get put in everybody’s mailboxes or in their fences.\u201d <\/p>\n
Armed with gloves, grabbers and trash bags, Erin McHugh, also known as the Bushwick Trash Lady on social media, started cleaning up the trash in her neighborhood almost a year ago, all on her own. <\/p>\n
Since then, she\u2019s gotten some help. <\/p>\n
\u201cContribution and your activism can happen at any scale,\u201d said Luna Medina. \u201cSo, whether it’s really on a macro scale that you’re doing something in Washington, D.C., or if you’re just coming out in the community doing something. It was just really encouraging to see people inspired to come out.\u201d <\/p>\n
Although the city\u2019s sanitation department is scheduled for street cleaning at least once or twice a week, neighbors say that\u2019s never been enough. Especially since that cleaning does not include the sidewalks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized very quickly after moving here that it isn’t the city’s job,\u201d said McHugh. \u201cOr at least the city wasn’t cleaning it up. It wasn’t going to get done unless I did it, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, whether it\u2019s one person doing the cleanup or dozens of people picking up litter together, this trash club community movement has already been spreading across Brooklyn. <\/p>\n
There are groups in Williamsburg, Greenpoint and beyond. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn Bushwick, we’ve already collected over 1,000 pounds of trash this year,\u201d said McHugh. \u201cSo if you want more information on starting trash clubs or the trash foundation and some of the work we’re doing, visit the Trash Foundation board and reach out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After piles of trash continue to fill the streets in some neighborhoods, residents are taking matters into their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9449,7039,9,24,63,4304],"class_list":["post-167959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-bushwick","tag-garbage","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-trash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}