One of the greatest joys of working at SeaWorld San Antonio is participating in the outreach events that are available to team members. Knowing that actions speak louder than words, I find that reaching out is very rewarding. In honor of the 42nd annual celebration of Earth Day, I helped to coordinate a road clean up. Finding team members that aren't too tied up in their normal hustle and bustle is the hardest part! Luckily, we have a daily newsletter that goes out to team members to solicit their support. We had eight team members that were able to dedicate just over two hours to cleaning up the area around our facility.
Normally, when we have a road clean up, the group will clean from our main entrance of the park to our employee entrance, but this time we took another approach. Our small, but mighty group traveled along Ellison Drive from our main entrance to Wiseman Boulevard. We cleaned both sides of Ellison Drive to cover approximately 1.5 miles. Luckily there was a buffer between us and the traffic - a newly marked bike lane.
Among the grass, wildflowers and mostly natural areas we discovered lots of litter. Our group picked up 23 bags of trash 7 large pieces of lumber, several car parts that appeared to remain after an accident, and three signs. The group also segregated out the items that could be recycled to include four wooden pallets, one cardboard box and 11 bags of recyclables, mostly plastic beverage containers. Some of the trash included random items, such as clothing, trophies, and even a can of cat food that the ants were feasting upon.
When asked why our team decided to take time out of their day to help pick up trash along a road where several people whizzed by, their remarks were virtually the same - it is the right thing to do. Frank (Auto Shop Supervisor) said he likes to do things like this. Gregg (Safety Specialist) said he felt that as a SeaWorld team member it is his duty to help preserve the environment. Bunny (Environmental Coordinator) said that she hates seeing trash carelessly thrown out. Bridget (Office Coordinator) said that she likes helping out, regularly cleans the area around her apartment complex and these events help us to get to know each other. Brandy (Contract Administrator) said that she always wanted to participate before, but her previous position made it difficult and now that she has the opportunity to participate she wanted to leave the environment cleaner than it was before. Joe (Curator) said that he hates seeing trash everywhere and he does a road clean up everyday around his neighborhood as he walks his dog. Paige (Assistant Curator) said it makes her mad when people litter because the animals think that the trash is food, try feeding it to their young, and the trash ends up killing the babies.
Take the advice from the team - save your trash for the trash can. You can make a real difference in keeping our planet clean.
