Of adult diapers, Busch beer & tobacco chaws

Cory Deutmeyer watches as Ryan McCaw unloads trash bags full of litter collected from about two miles of ditches in rural Scott County, Iowa. The men report there was more trash and litter collected than usual.

     It was a sunny, warm Saturday morning when more than a dozen men, women and teen-agers met at the Jason and Casey Feller home in rural Scott County, Iowa. Jason Feller had contacted volunteers to do the spring ditch-cleaning around the Lake Huntington neighborhood, located east of Scott County Park.

    The group was about equally divided between men and women, and it was decided that the women would work collecting litter, trash and debris for about a mile along 270th Street. The men would take Utica Ridge Road, also for a mile. (Utica Ridge poses a bigger challenge so the groups take turns on that stretch.)

    The debris clean-up project took about an hour. In general, three folks walked along the ditch to spot the trash in the first place; one was on top along the road, one was in the middle and one on the bottom. It meant walking through grass, and occasionally, walking into farm fields where trash was blown by the incessant wind.

    The volunteers gathered back at the Feller home to trade information on what was picked up. Some of the items found deep in the ditches:

   1. Used diapers, in adult sizes. (This was the grossest find).

    2. Many cans of beers. The favored taste in this area is Busch Light, discarded in cans and bottles in both tall and in regular sizes.

    3. Flatter cans that once held chewing tobacco.

    4. Pop bottles filled with tobacco spit. The tops were on these bottles, thank goodness.

    5. Red Solo cups.

    6. A steel rod with orange cover; which may once have marked a culvert but had been shorn in half.

    7. Steel items from a building blown down, some time last year. During the August derecho?

    8. Plastic bags. These had often blown into nearby farm fields.

    9: Avoided: A dead muskrat along the road, and rib bones of a dead deer.

    10. Best find: Fishing lures, in an unopened package. Found by volunteer who loves to fish.

    The Lake Huntington neighborhood has been doing this pickup since the 1990s. It started when one resident contacted the Scott County secondary roads department, which coordinates such efforts. 

    Interested persons may find the "Adopt A Road" information online: https://www.scottcountyiowa.gov/roads/adopt-road; or in Illinois: https://rigov.org/748/Adopt-A-Highway

    Scott County provides big white plastic bags for pick-up, as well as orange vests for safely walking the ditches. All the volunteers wore gloves, of course. The bags are deposited along 270th Street and will be picked up by the county. The clean-ups are usually conducted in the spring and fall. 

    It is a fulfilling activity and good exercise to boot!