An Uphill Journey

When Patrick Rutledge reflects on all the cleanups he’s participated in over the last 17 years as a volunteer with the Friends of Woodland Park (FWP), his mind goes to Greek mythology and the tale of Sisyphus. Doomed to an eternity of pushing a boulder up a hill only to have the stone roll back down as he nears the summit, Sisyphus’ toils were a punishment from the gods that made his name synonymous with tasks that are equal parts arduous and pointless. Rutledge acknowledges that the work, especially in the heat and humidity of Houston, is indeed hard, but since that first cleanup, the effort to de-litter Woodland Park has not been 100% fruitless.

“The park is 180 degrees since when we got started,” Rutledge says, “but cleanups — it can be a Sisyphean effort to try and keep the trash updated.” On October 14, Rutledge was joined by 47 volunteers in the most recent cleanup of Woodland Park. Held prior to the Plastics Industry Association’s National Plastics Conference, it was organized by the Future Leaders in Plastics (FLiP).

Despite being in mid-October, temperatures that day reached 86°, just four shy of the record. Before the cleanup, Rutledge offered a brief history of the park and walked volunteers through the dos and don’ts of extricating trash from along the Little White Oak Bayou Trail. He sported a white FWP baseball cap on his head and a moistened towel around his neck (his preferred method for staying cool in the south Texas heat) while wearing jeans — best safety practices call for full leg coverage. Ultimately, 51 bags of litter were gathered, with recyclables sorted from trash and delivered to Cyclyx for reclaim.

“It’s amazing what floats,” Rutledge observes. It’s a month after the cleanup, and I’m speaking with him by phone to get his perspective on the efforts that day and what he’s seen in the 17 years he’s participated in trash pickups and other volunteer work as part of the FWP, going back to the group’s foundation in 2007 a few years after the centennial of the park, which opened on July 4, 1903.

A portion of the bayou trail goes beneath Interstate 10, the Katy Freeway, which bulges in portions up to a gargantuan 26 lanes. When rain floods the interstate, all manner of trash floats its way to the bayou below, including one time, memorably for Rutlege, a Porta Potty. The relative seclusion of the park and its trails also makes it susceptible to dumping and the appearance of the stray mattress, child car seat or tire (the latter two of which were gathered by PLASTICS volunteers in mid-October).

After the PLASTICS cleanup, volunteers filled cone paper cups from two 5-gallon plastic water jugs to quench thirst and attempt to regain moisture lost to sweat in the heat.  Rutledge says in year’s past, the FWP would buy cases of plastic water bottles, ice them down and give those out to thirsty volunteers, but recently it purchased three of the water jugs and paper cups to fulfill the same purpose.

“The city doesn't have recycling in the park,” Rutlege explains, “so when we had an event, we’d separate out all the recycling. We’d all take a portion of it, bring it to our homes and put it in our individual recycle bins. After a few cleanups, we said, ‘Yes, we’re recycling everything, but why are we bringing plastic bottles into our park while we’re picking up plastic bottles and other debris from it?’”

Keeping Woodland Park clean, and the broader problem of plastic litter, can indeed seem Sisyphean. I suspect that just like the FWP volunteers, many of the folks reading this have found themselves tucking away and bringing home plastic bottles or other recyclables to their own recycling bins after consuming the items in public spaces that lacked recycling infrastructure. That’s a small but significant act, and progress up the hill of addressing proper end-of-life outcomes for plastics. A step at a time; a cleanup at a time; a water bottle at a time, I think society and industry, unlike Sisyphus, can get up that hill.

Tony Deligio