Small act of adopting a road can have big impact on Central Coast

With regard to Gary J. Brennan’s letter in Nov. 20’s Tribune (“Central Coast is beautiful — but not free of garbage”), I too despaired of all the litter on the side of our local roads, and cannot understand people who think the world is their ashtray and trashcan.

But what I did was informally adopt a local road that I drive almost every day. I bought a bright yellow vest and gloves from the 99 cent store at Laguna Lake and a device called a grabber from Amazon. I am careful to stay in the bike lane facing traffic and took a 45-gallon heavy-duty trash bag along with me.

At first, I could only walk a block on one side of the road before my bag was full. Eventually I made it the whole 3 miles of my chosen road. Now I can walk the whole road before I fill up a bag. People still throw trash on my road, but I do love to look at it right after it is picked up, and many people who see me out there have thanked me. Think globally, act locally. Please adopt a road Gary.

This story was originally published November 27, 2016 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Small act of adopting a road can have big impact on Central Coast."