John Minick really can’t enjoy a casual walk around Tigard these days without coming across some litter, so he never leaves his house off Greenburg Road without his litter pick-up equipment: A wheeled cart with a large compartment for litter, an open-weave bag to hold pop cans, a sharpie container, a grabber and gloves.
Minick, who has lived in Tigard for five years, and his partner Tami have always enjoyed walking, especially along Fanno Creek, “and I got tired of looking at the trash,” he said. “I first started taking along a bag to collect it and then got the cart and equipment.”
He joined the nationwide Adopt One Block program (adoptoneblock.org), where people sign up and enter their address to get a map of the closest blocks available to them and can order free cleaning supplies that are delivered to their front door.
“They encourage people to do it at least once a month, but you can do it on your own schedule,” said Minick, whose “block” is Greenburg Road to North Dakota to 95th and back to Greenburg. “I do a lot of other streets, wherever I walk,” he said. “I do Greenburg from 99W to Hwy. 217 quite frequently.”
A much bigger litter project he took on was cleaning up six abandoned homeless camps along Ash Creek that contained five to six tons of trash. “I was picking up trash along Shady Lane and talked to a police officer who said the city was talking about putting in a park along Ash Creek, where there were abandoned homeless camps,” Minick said.
“He asked if I was willing to tackle it, and a year later, after being out of state for months, I had the time and checked it out. There were pallets, water-soaked mattresses, furniture and car parts, plus people from several apartments were also dumping there. People who saw my posts online joined me in the clean-up. It was nice to have the help.
“When we had a couple thousand pounds or 15 to 20 55-gallon bags plus stuff too big for bags, we would call the city to pick it up at the corner of Shady Lane and 95th. But people reported me for littering, and a cop came out, and we got it straightened out. It was a very intense project. I hauled a couple hundred pounds of steel to recycle.”
Minick, who coordinates with Parks Manager Martin McKnight on the clean-up projects, posts about his litter pick-up adventures on Nextdoor and Facebook (John Gets Trashed) and encourages people to make a change and do their part in keeping Tigard clean. “A lot of people follow me online – it’s exciting,” he said. “I get 8,000 to 12,000 views on Nextdoor on the days I post something. I know I’m reaching people. It’s been very entertaining.
“Anyone can pick up trash – little kids, older people. Ten to 15 people have told me that they got involved because of me, and people can always participate in SOLVE community cleanups. There is no limit to people’s ability to succeed. I have noticed that when I pick up litter, there is less to see the next time.”
Some days Minick walks three to five miles, and “some days it’s 10 miles,” he said. “I want to clean up the world, but you can only start where you start, and I get a certain amount of joy from doing this. I’ve had people come up to me and say Tigard is one of the cleanest cities they’ve seen.”
Minick, who also has volunteered for the Hood to Coast Relay managing the volunteers, added, “We always picked up cans as kids, and my military’s motto is, ‘Always leave it better than you find it.’ I like the Adopt One Block program because the basics are provided. I don’t see this as work, I enjoy doing it.”
One time when he was picking up trash in downtown Tigard, “homeless people started helping me,” he said. “It was spontaneous. I think people want to solve problems – they just don’t see a way to get there.
“I worked in the downtown area a lot, and cigarette butts are a big issue. One day I picked up 1,800, and on an average day I pick up 300 to 400. I have probably picked up 100,000 butts since I have been doing this. One day I found 900 butts within 300 feet.”
Minick has talked to smokers living in apartment complexes about setting out butt cans, because many complexes don’t allow smoking on the property so smokers congregate on the sidewalks.
And persistence pays off. “It took a year to get Fanno Creek cleaned up,” Minick said. “And there was a site on North Dakota where commercial companies were dumping,” which Minick reported to Metro’s RID Patrol. It tackles dumped garbage on public property and provides other clean-up services.
Minick was a contractor for 30 years and served in the Oregon National Guard for five years and then the U.S. Army Reserves for 17 years.
People can report dumped garbage on public property to Metro’s RID Patrol at 503-234-3000.
