When you’re driving around southeast Michigan, you might happen to see three women on the side of the road. They’re all moms, but their kids are grown up. They work part time. They fill their free time by picking up trash... for fun.
"This is a beautiful area, and yet we have piles of garbage there."
Melinda Fons is with her friends Moy Garretson and Karen Rooke in suburban Detroit.
Karen: "Wagons roll!"
They get plastic grabbers and garbage bags out of the trunk. And they head into a little wooded patch next to a busy two-lane road.
Karen Rooke starts on the edges.
"I’ve got some cups, a newspaper and a plastic bag. And a credit card... ooh this is good. I’ll take that to the police."
The three women crawl under trees and into bushes to get the trash. There’s a pile of Styrofoam peanuts, empty rum bottles, a tire... and two more credit cards.
Karen: "I picked up 20 vodka bottles once and Listerine. I think it’s the kids that go drink down there. It’s just a quiet road, and have the Listerine so their parents – they think - don’t know. We were young once too!"
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