GARWOOD – The Garwood Democratic Club commenced with its first 2024 cleanup of Route 28/ North Avenue on Saturday, April 20. Cigarette smokers remain by far the biggest litterbugs, but by no means the only offenders. Despite numerous local businesses placing cigarette butt collection containers along their frontage, and in some cases speaking with their employees, smokers continue to litter North Avenue by their carelessness. What makes a smoker think that they can just flick their butts into the street without any ramifications? Don’t they realize that the butts they contaminate our travel-ways with end up in their own drinking water?

The club conducts four cleanups per year as part of its annual Adopt-A-Highway commitment to the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Besides cigarette butts, the usual slate of suspects – small liquor bottles, various bolts/screws/ valves from autos, fast food napkins/ straws/condiment packages, plastic water bottles, and vaping pens and associated packaging were also picked up. Some unusual ‘stuff’ this time around included a shirt, broken box cutters, a pair of broken eyeglasses, a large amount of confetti (someone must have had a party), utility line stakes and flags, a car air freshener, four unmatched gloves, lottery tickets, a light bulb, and a hangar were found. The largest item was the front grill of a Honda vehicle – there must have been an accident, but how does the grill get left behind?

Cigarette butts remain – from our initial cleanup four years ago – the largest single most picked up item at traffic lights, parking lot exits, and in front of local industries. We continue to urge all cigarette smokers to please dispose of your cigarette butts responsibly.

This time club members Mark Gernett, Councilmen Marc Lazarow and Vincent Kearney, Andy and Mayor Jen Blumenstock, Debbie Ledger, and Maria and Bill Nierstedt wore cotton gloves, handled ‘grabbers’, (some members are double fisted grabbers) and picked up enough litter to fill three bags of garbage and two bags of recyclables. The team did notice a continued general reduction in the amount of material picked up but North Avenue is far from being a clean roadway. Thanks to the NJ plastic bag ban law, we did not find or pick up a single plastic bag. The property frontage with the most litter once again was the Garwood Paperboard Urban Renewal Associates property. We know that the borough continues to issue summonses to the owner for failure to maintain the property, but apparently in addition to not maintaining their property, or advancing their site development, they are also not maintaining their property frontage. We hope that this will improve after pictures are sent to the Borough Property Maintenance Officer! Each cleanup reduces litter from entering our stormwater system and rivers, and reduces the visual litter blight thereby improving Garwood’s appearance to those passing through. Those interested in assisting the club in its future North Avenue cleanups or participating in other community activities are encouraged to contact the Garwood Democratic Club at garwooddems@gmail.com .