Why can’t all the residents of Cook County (and non-residents) agree not to dump unwanted trash, including glass, plastic, steel and aluminum cans, TVs, computer monitors, cardboard, and many other items in local gravel pits and along roads, streams and forests?
A significant proportion, but by no means all, of the “trashing” in gravel pits comes from…ah, what shall we say? Slobbish Target Shooters or Slob Sportsmen (please excuse the misuse of the term sportsmen).
There was a time, decades ago, when it was common practice to shoot glass bottles. Nowadays there is no acceptable reason for shooting glass containers. Aluminum and steel cans and plastic bottles make acceptable targets for “plinking.” They are all recyclable.
Target shooters, please pick up and recycle your targets, including cardboard boxes. Clay pigeon and shotgun shooters, please pick up your empty hulls (fired shells). Regulate yourselves before some government agency or the general public decides to restrict access and freedom to behave responsibly.
Then there are some folks who apparently think (or don’t think?) it is okay to discard unwanted trash, including many sorts of cans and bottles, along the county roads and highways. I suppose there are some people that only occasionally throw a can or bottle from the open window of their vehicle.
There are also, however, some who repeatedly travel certain routes and habitually throw certain brands of cans along certain stretches of roadway. Examples are the person(s) who litter Coke cans on County Road 6 (between County Road 7 and Brandon Lane). Another (or perhaps the same person) seems to discard partly emptied plastic soda bottles. Still, another’s litter of choice seems to be Mountain Dew empties strewn along the western portions of County Road 7.
Hmmm…wonder if these people are Agnostics, Atheists, Christians, Deists, Druids, or whatever? Oh, forget that – it’s probably a separate discussion.
Gary Siesennop
Grand Marais
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