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Lake Placid Clean Up was a success

To the editor:

The 60th annual Lake Placid Clean Up, held May 14, was one for the record books. Over 150 people volunteered beforehand, and on the hottest Clean Up Day ever! Sadly, it was also the worst amount of trash that accumulated over the past year.

We are always inspired by and thankful for the folks who come out to volunteer and clean with a team of family, friends or coworkers. This year, we even had a group of people visiting our beloved Lake Placid who joined in the effort!

However, we are profoundly dismayed by the need to perpetually pick up the mess others leave behind. Year after year, in the same spots, we encounter the same deja vu of a mess — hundreds of miniature liquor bottles strewn all over town and piles of beer cans. As far as we know, it is still illegal to drink and drive, yet one group of volunteers continue to find hundreds upon hundreds of Coors Light cans in the same spots along our roadsides every single year. We continually find ourselves asking: “Who are the litter bugs leaving these piles of trash and why do they have such little regard for our community?”

It’s clear that “No Littering” signage is ineffective. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could find a way to catch these culprits? We need to stop this mindless littering and the disregard for the law, the environment, the health of volunteers and the aesthetic of our beautiful surroundings.

It’s important to continue to teach our peers and our children the value of stewardship and giving back to the communities in which we live. In particular, to encourage everyone to clean up their surroundings and put their mess in its proper place. Someone should buy the Coors Light and nip “bandits” car-friendly trash receptacles to properly dispose of their beverage cans, instead of tossing them out their windows on a regular basis, we think apprehending anyone who drinks and drives is the more important issue at hand — and paramount for the health and safety of our community.

To those of you who led by example this past year and kept your neighborhoods neat and tidy, it really showed! We and other volunteers thank you. We would also like to give a big shout out of gratitude to our event sponsors: Lake Placid Garden Club, Central Garage, Lake Placid Pub and Brewery, Henry II and Mildred A. Uihlein Foundation, Kinney Drugs-Lake Placid, McDonald’s-Lake Placid, the Mirror Lake Inn, town of North Elba Parks Department, the village of Lake Placid. We couldn’t do it without you!

The annual Lake Placid Clean Up Day is a wonderful opportunity for residents and visitors alike to show love for this community by giving their time and energy cleaning our streets — and is a perfect reminder that it only takes a moment to stop and pick up a piece of litter and put it in its proper place.

With sincerest thanks to the many enthusiastic volunteers for your efforts, your great attitudes and your stewardship of our beautiful Adirondack town.

Andrea Grout and Tricia Garrett

Clean Up Day organizers

Lake Placid

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