Keeping Severna Park Beautiful

Have you noticed that Maryland, particularly Anne Arundel County, has gotten progressively more littered since the occurrence of COVID? The litter along our streets and highways, especially along our ramps, is such an eyesore. There are wheel rims and tires, plastic bags in trees and shrubs, discarded signs of all sorts, plastic cups and bottles, paper items like napkins and straws, furniture, cigarette butts, and numerous other trash items, especially at traffic lights.

Members of The CREW found a door at Cattail Creek, a shopping cart along McKinsey Road, a floor mop on Leelyn Drive and discarded longboards along Ritchie Highway.

For fun, we had named some of our frequent-flyer litterers. There is “Shredderman,” who consistently shreds his Big Gulp plastic cups before throwing them out his car window. There is “Crushman,” who may think he is helping the environment by crushing his cans before throwing them into the brush. Then there is “Tea Bag Lady,” who discards her tea bags along a certain section of Leelyn Drive. Finally, we now refer to the numerous cigarette butts as “cig butts.”

We cannot expect our county to be solely responsible for cleaning our roads. The county budget is limited, and their priority must be to keep our roads repaired to maintain safety.

Inmates collect trash once a month, but our county is too large to count on only them. We need the public's help to clean up and maintain a litter-free Severna Park. Some of this litter unfortunately ends up in our creeks and in the Severn and Magothy rivers. To learn more about our county litter problems and solutions, please go to www.aacounty.org/public-works-litter.

From the spring of 2023 through the summer and fall, The CREW, a volunteer group of seven members, picked up litter in the plazas of Severna Park, along Ritchie Highway, McKinsey Road, Asbury Drive, Leelyn Drive, Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, and Earleigh Heights Road. We worked each Saturday from 9:30am-11:30am. In 2024, due to health reasons, The CREW was reduced to two members. We are now looking for new members to volunteer on Saturdays from 9:00am-10:30am. Beginning in April, check for information on where we will focus our efforts. We announce details on the Nextdoor app and under “The Cleanup CREW” on Facebook.

Here are some suggestions for actions anyone can do to help with our current litter problem:

• Keep a bag in your car for trash.

• Pick up trash in your yard and near storm drains.

• Secure trash and recycling cans with tight lids.

• Cover your truck beds.

• Form your own block crew to pick up litter.

• Businesses can adopt a highway.

• Volunteer to clean up litter with The CREW.

We want to grow The CREW to maintain the surrounding beauty of our area. Beginning in April, we will meet weekly on Saturday mornings from 9:00am-10:30am at a designated area. Our first meeting location will be Leelyn Drive at the commuter parking lot on April 5.

Please join us. Families are welcome. Bring a paper bag and a grabber should you have one. Afterward, join us for coffee at Rise Up Coffee Roasters on Ritchie Highway. Timely announcements are made weekly on Facebook under The Cleanup CREW and on Nextdoor.