RANDOM ACTS OF CLEANUPS

You arrive at your favorite place to shoot and find it trashed.  Some ‘Jack-Wagon’ left his used up targets, milk jugs, beer cans and littered the ground with shotgun hulls (yet, they picked up their spent brass!).  Your blood boils and you’re down right discussed.  We don’t blame you at all.  We are all discussed at the mess we often see.

So what do we do first?  Break out the tools and start recreating?  Or clean it up?  Neither!  Grab the camera first!  Camera?  Yes!  Take photos to show the before and after.  Later, we ask that you email those photos to us, with a location, so we can forward them to the appropriate land management and/or law enforcement agency.  (It’s important for our management partners to know that we, responsible shooters, are contributing to the effort of quality recreation for all).  The more they hear of our ‘Random Acts of Cleanups’, the more they are inclined to keep recreational shooting areas open.

Now you may grab the trash bags and clean it up.  It’s no fun but it’s got to be done.  If you leave it, and the next guy does as well, soon you may not have a place to shoot!

What else could happen if you leave the trash and just start your shooting?  Law Enforcement could drive by at anytime.  Good luck trying to explain that “Those are NOT my holes in the beer cans and milk jugs.  And that propane tank isn’t mine.  Hey, the TV was already there!”  We’d hate to see anyone get fined for ‘illegal’ shooting of trash, so your best bet is to pick it up first.

It’s called Stewardship… ‘The careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care’.  Our right to shoot on public land is in jeopardy because of a few who don’t own up to the basic principle of Stewardship.  The more ‘Good Stewards’ we have on public land, the more others will be less likely to do their dirty deeds.  Teach by example!

We are always searching for ways to reach the new shooters and the bad ‘Jack-Wagons’ with our message of stewardship.  Be part of our team effort and become a partner with Trash No Land.  Subscribe to our blog for news, event happenings and good bedtime reading material.  Help us out if you have ideas!

www.trashnoland.org