On Saturday, February 23rd, I participated in the College’s 2nd Annual Day of Service event from 10am to 3:30pm. The event was coordinated and hosted by the combination of the Center for Civic Engagement and the Sustainability Literacy Institute. The purpose of the day was to recruit as many student volunteers as possible to become informed and educated on issues in our community, as well as help to combat them. A few partner organizations that students were able to sign up to volunteer with for the day included: The Greenheart Project, Keep Charleston Beautiful, Habitat for Humanity, The Fisher House Foundation, and Charleston Area Senior Center/Meals on Wheels. I signed up to help with Keep Charleston Beautiful, because I volunteered with the project in fall and enjoyed being a part of it so much that I figured why not help out again!
The day began with all the groups meeting in Stern for a presentation from a Sustainability Literacy Institute representative. Like what we have been discussing in class, we learned about the three components that make up sustainability and how it is very much so interdisciplinary. The speaker did a great job of including examples that helped explain how our society, economics, and environment all feed and bounce off of one another and have connected benefits and consequences.
Next, we were served lunch and met up with our small groups. Our Keep Charleston Beautiful group was led by senior Sydney Zazzaro, a team member for the Center for Civic Engagement. We all introduced each other and Sydney gave us an overview of the serious issues regarding litter in the Charleston community. She explained how more wealthy, more tourist-rich areas, such as King Street, are provided with street sweeping and their own trash pickups, while other regions, such as where there is government houses, suffers from more street litter due to no trash pickup duties. We had a discussion about how this cycle leads to gentrification in Charleston and causes issues in all three areas; societal, economic, and environmental.
After our discussion, around 12pm, we went outside and began the litter cleanup! We first picked up on more wealthy areas and then moved to less-affluent regions on the peninsula. I would say the majority of the trash we picked up were cigarettes. In both regions (both affluent and non-affluent), there were SO MANY cigarettes all over the ground! We used an app from the aquarium and I think the total came out to be around 800 (and that is just all that were able to pick up with our grabbers!). This really came as a shock to me, because I figured now-a-days more people have switched over to electronic cigarettes, which are still harmful to the body, but now that I think about it, would not be nearly as harmful to our environment as a whole! Other common items we found were plastic food wrappers.
Several hours and trash bags later, we had a reflection and discussion about the differences we found in these areas in terms of litter. While picking up the trash, part of me felt empowered and enthused in a way, because for a second I thought I was making a slight difference by getting rid of the litter on the street. But for the most part, I was a frustrated and confused, because I didn’t understand why people could not simply just throw away their candy wrappers and big mac bags in the trash can a few feet away??? However, the experience also opened my eyes to the difference in litter that was apparent in certain areas of the peninsula. The experience made me realize the issue is far greater than the trash itself, as it relates to both economic and societal nodes as well.
