Fourteen bags of garbage later … a successful CITO event

Today is Earth Day.

And though I’m not somebody who goes crazy every year for Earth Day, I do think it’s a good thing. After all, if we don’t take care of it, who knows where it will be hundreds of years from now?

With that in mind, Groundspeak — the company behind geocaching.com — has been holding its annual CITO (Cache In, Trash Out) Weekend the past few days (and into today).

I blogged about it a few days ago, but basically there are many events around the globe where geocachers get together and clean a park or an area. I had the chance to host one this weekend in my town and it was way more successful than I ever could have imagined.

We’re lucky in our area because the “city” that is the main area of our local geocaching group has some pretty clean parks. So when looking to host this CITO, I took it to another area. Our group covers a couple of counties, so it’s nice to get out of the main area. The problem there is, there are many people who don’t always go to the other areas. Add to that knowing that CITO events haven’t been successful around here before, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised.

We had nine geocachers show up, as well as another person and her kids. We did this on the property of a local high school and she is a teacher there, so it was nice to see her come and give some time.

The park isn’t huge by any means. I figured we’d go through, do some small cleaning and all would be good.

Boy was I wrong.

We carted out 14 bags of garbage!

Not all the bags were filled to the brim, by any means, but they had a lot of garbage in them. There were a lot of different items pulled, too. Everything from the normal bottles and everyday trash, to things like a spray paint can (which still worked, for the record) picked from the pond, to a comforter and pillow cases, to papers and anything else. We pulled some old and crappy lumber floating in the pond and found rusty metal objects.

I was quite stoked at how well things went.

The local high school helped us out in giving heavy duty bags, gloves and water. I know several people went through more than one set of gloves as they were the latex ones and could rip some. So it was nice to have extras.

In the end, the best part was being able to help clean up an area park. I definitely plan on hosting one of these again as I think it shows how in tune to nature and giving back many geocachers can be. This wasn’t just a social event for the cachers who came to this event, it was a way to do something good and know you’ve helped make something look nicer.

And that’s pretty cool.

I’d personally like to thank those in our area who came out and helped clean up this park. As a small group of people, we really did a solid job, picked up a lot of trash and helped make this park that much nicer. I had no idea this much trash was there, but we did a good job in making it look even better.

Geocaching is a great hobby and game. It’s fun to go out and find things hidden in the wild. But, not everybody “gets” this game. This is a good way to show we, as geocachers, actually care about the environment and the places where we cache. I’m happy to have taken part in this event and look forward to being able to do it again.

Kudos to Groundspeak for holding this “international” event every year, where geocachers can get together throughout a weekend and give back to all of these areas we happily visit throughout the year. And kudos for all you geocachers who came out to events throughout the world, pitched in, cleaned up and gave back. Well done!

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — a minimum of $5– you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted lap quilt or pillow. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!