Over the last month you’ve probably seen plenty of roadside trees decked out for the holidays, and not just in peoples’ front yards. Sometimes it’s trees on public land that get the Christmas treatment, but that can make clean up a challenge on one Austin road now that the holidays are over.
Decorating the trees along Loop 360 has been holiday tradition for years. So has the cleanup. Keep Austin Beautiful Executive Director Rodney Ahart says this is the fourth year his group’s organized volunteers. What do they find?
“[We find] everything from tinsel to garland to plastic ornaments and even battery operated ornaments as well,” he says.
The Texas Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining Loop 360, and a spokesperson for the agency said it would clean the decorations up eventually. But Ahart says it’s especially important to pick stuff up on this roadway because it lies in the Bull Creek Watershed.
“The timing is so critical with the change in the weather with everything that could happen in regards to the wind and the rain,” Ahart says. “We want to try to collect these ornaments before it actually makes it to Bull Creek.”
Volunteers meet this Saturday outside the Canyon Springs Apartments, and you can find out more about the cleanup at Keep Austin Beautiful’s website.
