Liberty Mountain Trash Collection Initiative

September 7, 2021 192 view(s)

Liberty Mountain Trash Collection Initiative

 

This is the Liberty Mountain Trash Cylinder Mountainous Trashicus. While it is indigenous to the warehouse area of Liberty Mountain’s Utah headquarters, its diet consists of trash from all outdoor regions including local canyons, parking lots, and exotic snacks brought to it by employees and friends from across the U.S. While the Trash Cylinder can consume most varieties of trash, organic materials don’t sit well in the cylinder resulting in a foul odor. Like any loyal pet, Trash Cylinder has favorite people, those who bring it the most trash, and those who bring it the most unique/exotic items. It certainly loves all who bring it trash and locals will hold celebrations when it fills to the top. 

 

The employees of Liberty Mountain are conscious of their responsibility to be stewards of the places they recreate. A common highlight of stories from weekend excursions is the strange bits of trash found on the trail. Some employees have collections of rare pieces like pull tabs from aluminum cans which have been discontinued for decades. Maybe the most legendary piece of trash found on the trail was a fully functioning raft that had been clearly abandoned as it was found partially buried by earth and debris. 

 

The trash cylinder grew as a place where employees could display their stories of discovered trash-treasure. Our hope is that by placing the cylinder in a place where it can be easily seen in the warehouse that employees will have another reminder to take care of the places they explore. The only limit to trash that can go in the cylinder is that it has to come from outside our building.  

 

Our goal with this project is to fill the eight-foot-tall plexiglass cylinder with trash from outside. This includes local parks and even our own parking lot. By the time it is filled, we will have collected 40 cubic feet of trash. At which point, we will empty it and start again. We would even like to grow involvement beyond our own walls, accepting trash from visitors to our outlet or shops who would like to team up with us. Our intention is to encourage others to join in to help us reach our goal and to see how many times we can fill Mountainous Traschicus. 

 

If the reason behind making our trash more visible is to encourage more people to join us in our trash collection efforts, then the way to increase the amount of trash we are collecting is to be even more visible. We are using #trashfromtrails as a common place where people can see each other's trash collection successes and share stories of the odd pieces they have found. We would like to invite you to get involved by sharing your trash collection stories with us by using that hashtag so we can see you in your efforts and would love it if you followed along and celebrated with us when we make progress filling up the trash cylinder. We also think it would be fun to highlight some of the more unusual pieces that we find on the trail. So far, a single climbing shoe might be the most unique piece that has been brought back to us. 

 

We care deeply about our wild places. If you follow our blog, you will see multiple posts like this one about how important it is to keep our trails clean and practice Leave No Trace Principles. We want to highlight that, to us, the wilderness is more than just the backcountry. It is our local city parks and our favorite trails close to home. It is everywhere between your front door and the door to your office. There are a million reasons to pick up trash. You can turn in recycling and get some spare cash. You can be heavily motivated by the thought of trash affecting wildlife. Whatever your reason is, share it and invite others to join in an effort to keep these places pristine. Follow along as we make our trash collection efforts a little more visible and share the message so that together we can make a difference. 

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