Beautification collaboration
Leah Harryman crouches to shove garbage into her sack while cleaning up litter along Interstate 90 during the Civic Engagement Alliance's Trash Tag Challenge on Sunday. DEVIN WEEKS/Press
Hosanna Schumacher organizes volunteers for deployment to different areas along I-90 and nearby parks for the Trash Tag Challenge cleanup event Sunday.
Savannah Shoot, 7, discusses her objective to keep Earth clean and healthy as she and her mom, Sarah Shoot, pick up trash along I-90 near the Washington border on Sunday.
Marisa Gunnerson, left, and Terri Herting, members of North Idaho Eye's nine person Trash Tag Challenge team, discuss the amount of trash in a field near Walmart and Sysco west of Post Falls. Jim Mowreader/Press
An unsettling amount of litter has accumulated along I-90, at rest areas and in local parks.
Plastic coffee cup lids, grocery bags, cigarette butts, empty booze cans and vehicle debris are among the worst offenders.
But at least for today, those areas are a little cleaner thanks to the 81 volunteers who participated in the Civic Engagement Alliance's Trash Tag Challenge on Sunday.
"I literally picked up a car crash," said Civic Engagement Alliance board member Carrie Morrison, who helped organize groups to pick up trash near the state line.
In bright safety vests, Savannah Shoot, 7, and her mom, Sarah Shoot, combed a freeway hillside to fill their orange sack.
"I just want to help the earth so it can be healthy and clean," Savannah said.
Sarah was among several team members from Macy's, which hosts community service campaigns for its employees each month.
"Earth Day was this month, so we were excited to participate in this opportunity," Sarah said.
The Trash Tag Challenge stems from the #trashtag movement that began as an internet challenge a few years ago to encourage people to clean heavily littered areas and post photos of their filled trash bags on social media.
This is the third year the local challenge has taken place. Volunteers were challenged to fill at least 100 trash bags. After the cleanup, event organizers estimate that 169 bags of trash were filled.
Civic Engagement Alliance board president and lead organizer Jessica Mahuron said this was inspired by all the people who have submitted letters to the editor wondering why people aren't doing anything about the trash buildup throughout the community.
"We got 99 problems, but trash really shouldn't be one of them," she said to the volunteers who amassed at Treaty Rock Park in Post Falls ahead of the cleanup. "This is something that we can do something about."
Gayle and Steve LaCroix of Post Falls and their son Aiden, 6, were among the many families who rolled up their sleeves to beautify the community.
"I grew up in Coeur d'Alene, moved back here last year and there's just been so much trash on the freeway as I go back and forth between here and Coeur d'Alene," Gayle said. "We thought it would be fun to do something together as a family."
