Pennypack Park cleanup inventory: something for everyone

Neighbors of one northeast Philadelphia community compiled quite the list of finds from a recent cleanup effort. One of the volunteers posted to the NEastPhilly site, documenting the day and all of its findings.

Plan Philly has done a wonderful job at itemizing the list:

What do a shopping cart, a blue comb, four car tires without rims, two baby dolls, and a Frisbee have in common? They're all on a bizarre list of "other" things found by Friends of Pennypack Park volunteers during a recent weekend cleanup of Pennypack on the Delaware.

In addition to hauling off 42 bags of trash, here's what volunteers found:

• one-half of a bag of cans
• one penny
• part of a shopping cart
• one whole shopping cart in the Delaware River – very far from mint condition, though it strolled the aisles of Sam's Club
• an ancient artifact in the guise of a metal milk crate
• a tape measure
• a Tupperware bowl
• a flower pot
• a green dust pan (surprisingly its alternate use when not adding to a trash pile is cleaning up after one)
• a blue comb (not trashed by a short-haired critter)
• 12 wooden tree stakes
• a gas canister (remember we were by the river, just downstream from the Baxter Water Treatment Plant – not something we were fond of finding)
• a Spiderman soft-sided Lunch Box (try explaining this to your parents: my lunch box that I claimed I lost in school was found washed up on the banks of the Delaware. If you're going to play hooky remember that the river always tattles)
• just in time for those too early holiday displays — last year's plastic Christmas ball
• a wooden stake (just in time to defeat the Halloween vampires)
• an unopened container of baby wipes (to wipe your hands off afterwards)
• three bags of tree limbs (trash is trash; make your own compost pile or take your yard waste to State and Ashburner on Saturdays)
• the ubiquitous green plastic resin chair
• a paint tray holder
• a blue trash crate
• multiple parts from a car frame
• part of a car jack
• two truck tires with rims (good for an advanced park workout)
• four car tires without rims (good for a beginner's park workout)
• a big piece of wood
• six more pieces of wood
• an iron rod
• a pair of jockey shorts
• a Croc shoe
• four kinds of flip flops
• a Bear Necessity bear hard plastic toy
• a Disney pink cupcake with mouse ears toy
• a child's beach shovel (well, we were at the river, close enough)
• a Waterblaster water gun
• two baby dolls
• a Frisbee
• And the piece de resistance: 14 different kinds of balls (clean your mind, not that kind): two baseballs, a wiffle ball, a ball-type toy, a red rubber ball, two golf balls, one softball, two plastic balls, an over-sized tennis ball, four soccer balls, a small plastic basketball, a small plastic tennis ball, a mid-sized rubber ball, a big super ball, and finally, a regular sized super ball.

The moral of the story? Littering is wrong thought collectively interesting. Still, don't do it.