Volunteer Cleans up Illegal Dumpings Around Bay Area. A Month Later, This Is How the Spot Looks Like
In the last few years, Vallejo, a city in San Fransisco Bay Area, California has seen a dramatic rise in illegal dumping. While the authorities are working their best unless the residents willingly change the situation, they can do but so very little. Thankfully, there are people like Andy Wang (u/pengweather). Wang is not just a local environmental hero, but a spark of inspiration who epitomizes that change starts with an individual. Doing this without any expectation of reward fulfills his soul. In a recent Reddit post, he expressed utter delight that his trash-picking efforts are slowly leading to the return of nature in Vallejo.
Over the years, Wang has become a celebrity among local communities of San Francisco. On weekdays, he works as an electrical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and spends his evenings and weekends swabbing streets littered with trash. According to the Vallejo City government, The City of Vallejo Grounds Maintenance Division cleans up approximately 3,500 tons of illegally dumped trash and debris on public property yearly, roughly the weight of Apollo 11’s Saturn V rocket or about 417 school buses. “Seeing nature return after I cleaned up the illegal dumping at this location for fun made me smile,” Wang wrote in the caption of a Reddit post. The photo displays clumps of bushes and greenery sprouting from the ground that was once cluttered with leftover trash.
People are lauding and showing respect to Wang for his selfless initiatives. “You’re literally healing patches of earth. Amazing,” commented u/euphoricair4570. u/morhambot said, “We need more people like you.” Some Redditors pointed out that Wang doesn’t take any donations. In a July Instagram reel, Wang revealed why he doesn’t accept any donations for his work. He said that this was just a hobby, and he would feel bad taking money for it. His only wish is to help make people realize that we’re all in this together and hopefully inspire them to take better care of our planet. So all the expenses for this trash cleaning go from his pocket, and sometimes, he finds bits of cash lying here and there in the trash.
Despite all the expenses and efforts, Wang finds the work therapeutic. “Throughout the day, I work as a programmer and an engineer, so I don’t see results until months later,” Wang told The Mercury News, “But with cleaning, I see the difference I’m making an hour later.” He added that this hobby helped him a lot to decompress during the pandemic. So what is his method? How does he find the spots of illegal dumping?
In a comment on a previous Reddit post, Wang revealed that he usually finds these locations while running errands or just strolling. Once his attention catches a trash-littered spot, he takes notes of it and covers that spot during his free time. Besides, he uses Google Maps and Apple Maps to track satellite images related to areas like industrial areas, near freeways, etc. Sometimes he browses old articles about dumping sites, whereas other times, people message him about a site in their locality. His technique might be simple, but his purpose is grand. While the patches of the city grapple with people’s careless muck and rubbish, Wang is changing the historical landscape, one trash bag at a time.