Going on a Quest

…because they love to pickitup pickitup pickitup!

I’m here to invite you to download an app. Nobody involved will make any money off of it if you do. Actually, you might find some loose change on the ground. That’s about it, though.

It’s called Delete Litter. Here is the app store link. I don’t know if it will work but I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t.

All you do is pick up some trash and log the amount and post a picture of it to prove you actually did it. Then other people can like the post and you go on a leaderboard. It’s simple!

I downloaded this about a month ago and have logged 106 pieces of trash—this is close enough to correct, but definitely not perfect, because I’m bad at keeping count. I’ve tried tallying on the counter app on my smartwatch but I forget to do that too. It’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is that this very straightforward, unfussy app gamifies litter collection just enough that I really want to do it regularly. And Philly needs it, badly. There’s all kinds of shit all over the sidewalk, not just from dogs. I admittedly haven’t listened to this myself, but people have spent precious hours of their lives investigating why there’s so many chicken bones on the street. I’ll get to it eventually (soon now that I’m posting about it), but the TL;DR is raccoons and alley cats as well as dirtbag humans dropping food the second they’re done with it.

I’m a little shy about going out on a Trash Walk with a grabber claw stick (I got one in anticipation of a surgery then ended up not needing anything off high shelves anyway, but I’ve kept it through several moves because sometimes you really do need three more feet of arm, uh, hmm), but I’ve incorporated little bitty cleanups into my life by surveying just the area directly in front of my house and around my car as I come home. This is usually good for about 10 pieces of random shit. Cigarette butts and water bottles are popular. I’m really protective of the beautiful young cherry tree I got free from the city, and its small clearing tends to catch a lot of bits of crap. Essentially, I’m doing a “selfish” task by cleaning up my own area, but I should nut up and take the claw out and start doing the whole block. I could maybe get paid for this, but it seems like a lot of commitment for pizza money. I also sometimes carry the mail for my block as overtime because the regular broke his foot, so I’m trying to manage how much of a hyperlocal celebrity I am. I live about two blocks from my route so sometimes I see customers too. This is my own neurosis. I could be living it up on some Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood type shit, but here I am trying not to be the weird tidy mailman. Oh well.

It would be cool if this was a sort of subcultural thing. There’s a subreddit where I first discovered the app, and some folks have a whole setup with fancy grabbers or tongs and carts with sorting bins. It’s amazing. I mostly pick stuff up with my bare hands because I wash up any time I come home anyway. If I have a recently-emptied coffee cup or find a derelict plastic bag, I try to fill it up. It doesn’t have to be schmancy, the trash doesn’t care and you’re giving it more attention than the original owner ever did.

Anyway, I want you to download this app and go pick up some trash wherever you are. Litter is gross and sad. When somebody throws plastic on the ground, it makes Mother Nature cry, but if somebody else picks it up and disposes of it correctly, it makes her smile. And you can win at it! Currently I’m at #124 globally. There’s not a ton of people to compete with—I got just “ryan” as my username—but it ramps up once you do more than a few handfuls. You can set goals, too. Default is 365 pieces in a year—if you can’t find one piece of garbage on the ground every day, I’d be happy to send you some.

It’s an easy way to make the world a better place. Plus, sometimes there’s cool shit on the ground. Aside from change, I recently found a nice bucket and I’m currently wearing a pair of athletic shorts I found frozen in a sheet on the curb. Go get ‘em!

P.S. I’m sorry about the title joke. Somebody else inflicted it upon me recently and I had to pass it along like a chain email, or herpes. It’s kinda good though. I am not a ska enjoyer even though I literally own a trombone. It’s dented on the important bits so I haven’t learned to play it yet though, so don’t go calling me a dork.