February 10th, 2020 – Safeway Route.
The walk this morning was cool and dry. Even the roads were dry and we arrived home with dry shoes and socks. There were several fair-weather joggers out this morning but nobody we were acquainted with. We didn’t find any money! Come on guys, it’s Monday.
The amount of trash was average, and we continue picking up the pieces of shiny confetti which, we found out, is made of PVC, not acetate and is probably even worse to let flow into the ocean. On the plus side, the inside of our garbage can looks very festive. 
Someone tossed out their faucet insulator. 
It’s a little premature for that. There’s probably more cold weather coming.
Speaking of cold weather, at least one couple was keeping warm. 
We thought this was a glove, but it was used condom along 145th. This number three on our list of reasons to wear rubber gloves while picking up trash.
- Needles
- Roadkill
- Condoms
- Tampons
- Dog poop bags
- Clothing, especially soiled underwear
- Plastic water bottles with yellow liquid
- Cigarette butts
- Discarded rubber gloves (we don’t know where they’ve been)
- Unknown substances
- Half-eaten food
- Salamanders, slugs and other slimy things.
Near the Safeway gas station, another person lost their cap. 
We’re assuming this is a different person. We don’t know for sure, but you’d think a he’d learn after losing the first one.
We found a hard, solid rubber ball in ditch that was flowing water yesterday. 
It’s about two inches in diameter and may be a dog’s ball. You certainly wouldn’t want to play Racquetball with it. Racquetballs sting enough when you get smacked in the back by your partner.
Someone went radio-silent. 
This is probably a good thing with the number of cars with boom boxes blaring.
Hope they saved enough money to buy hearing aids when they’re 50.
We found this interesting tube. 
The label was torn so we couldn’t tell what it was. But they did tell you plenty about what it wasn’t.
“No Preservatives, No Sugar, No Salt, No GMO, No Irradiation, No Gluten, No MSG, No Artificial Color.”
Okay, we know what it isn’t but what is it. More off the label.
“USDA Organic, Certified Gluten Free, Kosher Certified, 100% Vegan, Recyclable.”
With Google’s help we easily found it was Organic Saffron. On Amazon, it is $20 for 0.02 ounces. The tube once held 0.04 ounces, so about $40 worth. $16,000 per pound. Maybe we should scrape out the tube. The drug cartels are in the wrong business.
Of course, this is based on the retail packaging. This article on the World’s priciest foods puts saffron at number four at $1,500 per pound. Still a hefty amount. What’s ahead of it? Caviar at $1550, White Truffles at $6000, and, at the top, Edible Gold Leaf at $15,000 per pound. If we find a pound of edible gold leaf, we’ll let you know.
February 11th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route.
It was cool and dry again today. We didn’t find any money AGAIN. We did remove a roadkill rabbit and, for some reason, we got three honks from passersby. We don’t know why. Maybe Chuck’s fly was down, who knows?
We were fortunate this morning. 
We haven’t found “fortunes” in a long time and today we found three in two different places. We thought this might be an omen until we got home and read them. Pretty lame and not really fortunes. Then again, Aphorism Cookies doesn’t really roll off your tongue or even sound like something you’d want to eat.
At the freeway off-ramp, another lug nut. 
This one didn’t unscrew, the stud broke off. Not good.
Someone else trying to quit smoking. 
An almost full pack of soggy Marlboro’s. Of course, we did find four other empty packs.
We found another discarded DVD. 
We normally try to clean these up and try to find out what was on them. With this one, we didn’t even try.
On our way up Norway Hill, we came across this. 
A 12-pack of Budweiser carton and 9 cans. Must have been three for the road. We figured the Tolt Pipeline would be a mess, but it was clean. Go figure.
We found a pair of plastic bags. 
We had no idea what this was, so of course, we Googled “West Coast Prime Time.” Good luck. 167 million hits, mostly about TV shows and TV schedules. Okay, there is a Seattle address, so try Google Maps in Seattle. Nothing. Now we’re on a mission. The bags disappeared with our trash, but we did get the phone number from the photo of the bags and Google tracked down. Northwest Concrete Pumps and Equipment, an equipment rental company. So it appears to be some additive for concrete.
“Hi, I’d like to rent the 63-meter boom pump for a week.” “Certainly, sir, that’ll be $6,438 plus tax. How about a couple bags of concrete hardener for that? Only $4.39”
Kind of like renting a U-Haul truck.
February 12th, 2020 – Safeway Route.
It rained last night but stayed dry for our walk. It must not have been much rain because there were plenty of cigarette butts to pick up.
We found some more stolen mail along Juanita-Woodinville Way. 
Three Valentine cards, from grandma. They must have been mailed in a different envelope because the envelopes only had first names on them, so we’ll have trouble tracking them down. From the notes inside the cards, it appears there was some money involved, but, of course it’s gone.
We found a bouncy ball with a snowman inside. 
It’s in our ball collection now.
We found two more of the Budweiser cans that we missed yesterday. 
We’re still missing one. Maybe tomorrow.
We also found two of these. 
One at the bottom of Norway Hill and the other near the top. Man, this guy’s fast.
February 13th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route.
This morning’s walk was 38ºF and dry, but as soon as we got home it started to rain. Nice timing. We time our park-and-ride walks to arrive with the Seattle bus since it clears the riders out of the bus stop. This morning it was late, so we wandered the parking lot for a few minutes until it arrived.
In the lot, we found four rubber gloves. What do you need rubber gloves for in the parking lot? Maybe we don’t want to know. Also, another car got broken into. 
Don’t leave valuables in the car.
We found this. 
We could use it to go through our trash with a fine-toothed comb. But we’d rather not.
Only electric vehicles can park on the grass. 
That’s because internal combustion engines drip oil, antifreeze and gasoline. Electric vehicles only drop whatever the passengers toss out.
Parking rage. 
You’re not only an asshole, you are a litterer. So, who’s Karma? She sounds kinky.
The bus finally came and we were able to continue on our walk. We found a brand of cigarettes that were new to us. 
We don’t smoke, so there are probably a lot we don’t know about. These were an unopened pack of Kamel Reds. Thanks to Google, R.J. Reynolds originally launched these 1913 as an upscale, as in more expensive, option to their Camel brand. It faltered in the Great Depression like many upscale items and was abandoned.
In 1996, they reintroduced them, primarily to be sold in upscale clubs and bars. Today, they appear to be generally available. At any rate, this pack is now in our cigarette collection. Watch for an upcoming post for more cigarette collection details.
As an aside, when autonomous cars are widespread, will they will they have automatic litterers? And will the litter automatically recycle itself or will we be replaced with automatic litter picker-uppers. We’ll probably never know.
We did find a sightly-worn tool. 
It was probably tossed because it was a bit worn. But for our Sawzall, it will work fine.
Okay, the Taco Time Tokus and the McLitterers have taken a hiatus. But someone traversing Norway Hill is making making up for them. 
There was a bag with its contents strewn along the road, including the french fries. This is not easy, you need to work at it. The easy thing to do is leave most of the trash in the bag and dump it. They went through the effort to dump all the trash individually. We’re sure it makes their parents proud. It makes that $253 you put into your kid’s college fund well worth it. Thank you.
February 14th, 2020 – Safeway Route.
The weather today was much like yesterday and the traffic was very light. We did get two honks and a verbal thank you from a lady at the stoplight by the 7-Eleven. These greetings seem to increase as the sunrise gets earlier.
We found someone’s gym membership card. 
Thrive Community Fitness. Normally, we would drop it off at the fitness center, but the closest one to us is 17 miles away in Monroe. They drove a long way to litter in our area.
Then there was this McTrash very near our home. 
The receipt was from a McDonald’s in Newcastle. More people driving a long way to litter in our territory. It must be our reputation. You can dump anything here and become famous. At least to the folks who visit this site.
We did save someone from a very serious flat tire. 
It was about three inches long. You’re welcome.
We found a tag. 
Being curious, we looked it up on Google and it was actually easy to locate. Curotto Can makes attachments to make garbage trucks more efficient. 
It’s the yellow box on the front. This particular part is the “Main valve to Can base – female,” part of the wiring harness. See, picking up trash can be educational.
Another pair of useless bicycle glasses. 
Light weight, though, none of those heavy lenses.
Uh-oh. Someone lost their VIP ticket. 
“Admission to Complimentary Health and Wellness Event.” It’s copyright by U.S. Direct Mail Service. Okay, maybe they didn’t lose it.
February 15th, 2020 – Riverside Drive.
Our Saturday morning walk was cool, dry and breezy. It got very windy as we crossed the freeway toward the end of our walk. The last two Saturdays, we were in a hurry and did the walk in about three and a half hours. Today we weren’t rushed so took four and a half hours and picked up a lot of trash. The apartments on Woodinville Drive have large dumpsters for both garbage and recycle. Today we made three trips up the driveway for recycling trash we picked up across the street.
We got one drive-by honk and several waves. We removed a roadkill rabbit and found money!
Two quarters. 
One was about fifty feet down the northbound freeway on-ramp and the other was about half way across the overpass. We may just abandon our other routes and hang out around the freeway. But then we’d have to learn to play the guitar.
The first thing we found walking down the hill toward Riverside Drive was stolen mail. 
There were a lot of pamphlets and ads, but no real mail. We found a few more pieces along Riverside Drive and a lot more on our return trip down 112th Avenue NE. We did find two ads that had an address on them for the Riverside Estates Apartments on Riverside Drive. We found nothing but ads and voters’ pamphlets.
The walk can get boring. Fortunately we found this. 
A trivia game card. We took turns asking each other questions, but after we’d gone through the them three or four times it got boring again.
Let’s get the week’s gloves and poop bags out of the way. 
Eight gloves,
and three poop bags.
Free stuff. 
Well, the poop bags are free too, but this is different. Two sets of blinds and three cups. Later in our walk, we found two more similar cups that someone took at least two and and tossed them. We could use the table. We are considering taking it and leaving the rest.
We came upon a tricky situation. 
Some balloons trapped in a berry bush. Only one was still functioning as a balloon. The others seemed deflated and had given up. We reached in with our picker, but, alas, it didn’t make it.
We did find another in good condition. 
It traveled with us the rest of the walk. Don’t worry, we kept it well away from the killer berry bushes.
We found kid’s clothing. 
One sock, one shoe, one glove and one headband. So the only thing that is useful is the headband and it’s too small for us.
We found a bra. 
No, really, it’s called a Bearing Buddy bra. It even comes in pairs. Bearing Buddies pressurize wheel bearing grease in trailer wheel bearings to keep water out, especially useful for boat trailers.
A homemade bong. 
Where do you put the pot? We’ve found several bongs on our walks that we’ll sell cheap.
We found a paper with Terminal Operating Rules. 
Turning it over, we found it was a ticket for returning an empty cargo ship container to Husky Terminal and Stevedoring, Inc. Their website is interesting to poke around, and from the ticket, they have their act together. They specify exactly where the container and the chassis are to be placed. On their yard map, they have the routes the trucks need to navigate to reach the locations. More education courtesy of TrashWalking.
We picked up a small pin of Rapunzel and Flynn. 
A Disney Trading Pin, $7.50 new. This one’s pretty beat up so probably worth maybe ten cents. Even the slug doesn’t want it.
We found a CD in good condition. 
Paquita La Del Barrio. She’s a Mexican singer and was nominated for a Grammy in 2011. We listened to some of the songs. Not our style, though. This is probably a pirated copy. The image does not appear on any of her albums, there is no album title and there are twenty-six tracks, none of which were identified the by Window 10 media player. The FBI anti-piracy warning’s a nice touch, though.
Emergency Contraceptive. 
We know what you did last night.
Another abandoned chair by the apartments. 
We’ll see if it disappears on it’s own. We hate to always be the ones to nag the City of Bothell.
Here’s a ticket waiting to happen. 
Shiny new car. It could use a new ticket.
We told you we find these. 
A water bottle with yellow liquid. Reason 7 for wearing rubber gloves.
We found another nearly-full pack of cigarettes. 
And there’s one upside down which is considered to be the lucky cigarette you smoke last. Nobody seems to know what the origin of this superstition is and which of the many explanations may be true, but one is here.
“During the some [sic] war, we would get 3 cigarettes in our MREs (meals ready to eat) and would flip one upside down and smoke that last. If you got to smoke your last cigarette you were considered lucky to be alive.”
In some explanations it states that it was WWII.
Someone tossed their cookies at the bus stop. 
It may not be cookies…
We passed a five-foot cyclone fence and saw what looked like a can in the grass. 
We reached over with the picker and found it was the cover for a nearby fence post. When we replaced it, we saw the pipe was nearly full of rainwater. It’s been a wet season.
ALWAYS use the right tool for the job. When you don’t, this is the result. 
A dented spoon and a bent nail.
Nearing home, we found another ad from the stolen mail. 
An oil slick from a newspaper? Perhaps it had a Jiffy Lube ad in it.
Trash Walking 