Litter in melting snow piles

    Come March every year in Kenosha,Wi., when the weather starts to heat up a bit, snow piles around the city start melting. These mountains of snow, that have gotten bigger in size each time that we have had a snowfall, and the plows push everything in to one spot at many different locations around town, from retail parking lots, schools, churches, and anywhere that the unwanted snow can be pushed to get out of the way. After awhile they look like giant mounds of black dirt, with whiskey bottles, empty cigarette packs, chip wrappers, and anything else that the wind may have picked up and dropped somewhere. Sometimes you may be lucky and find Andrew Jackson peaking at you through a small crevice in the snow on a twenty dollar bill that the wind may have stolen out of the hand of innocent store patron, but for the most part it is nothing but trash.

These gigantic mounds will sometimes  take a good month or two to dissipate, and leave nothing but an eyesore of filth for you and I to see, as we await the grass to become green and the leaves to start growing back on the trees, nature slowly starts to take its course, as we approach Spring in Wisconsin. As I pass these mounds of muck day after day, driving back and forth to work, I wonder who is responsible for the clean-up of garbage when that is all that is left.

Dominic, who has been a long time Alderman in the city of Kenosha says, “It’s up to the owners of the parking lots to clean up their own mess.” and, ” city lots are cleaned by the public works department.” Common knowledge would tell me that any house owner is responsible for anything on his/hers own property, including the front curb next to the street. Here is another option that I was thinking, how about, we all do our part in keeping Kenosha clean by making sure we don’t ever litter and properly put trash where it needs to go, and if we accidentally drop it or see something we can easily pick up and toss, just do it, and help keep our fine city of Kenosha clean.

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