Crystal Anti-Litter Efforts Start At The Top
Most mornings, if you want to see Mayor Julie Deshler in Crystal, you have to look at the busiest intersection in town: Bass Lake Road and Broadway.
Crystal Mayor Julie Deshler picks up litter along the sidewalk beside Bass Lake Road.
“I’m out here almost every day, weather permitting,” said Deshler. “I try to go out early in the morning, when it’s generally cooler and there isn’t much traffic.”
Armed with a grabber and a garbage bag from her kitchen, Deshler picks up litter along the streets, sidewalks, and in parking lots.
“I can’t stand litter,” said Deshler. “If you kind of look at the results of the community surveys of the past, one of the biggest complaints about Crystal is it just is messy. There’s no reason that we have to look messy, when it’s just so easy to bend over and pick it up and dispose of it properly.”
Deshler said there are plenty of community groups who help: Lions Club and VFW members, and the Friends of Crystal Parks recently donated proceeds from a plant sale to help pay for grabbers and garbage bags for anyone to pick up at the Community Center to use to gather litter across the city.
“I’m hoping that kind of snowballs with the litter. If people kind of start noticing, ‘Hey, it looks kind of clean around here, I better not litter. I better save this in my car and when I get home, dispose of it properly,'” she said. “If we just work together, we could make a big difference in how our community looks.”
