Photo by Sydney Cromwell.
Shehzan Maredia and Pippa Lother, organizers of the CleanHoover Initiative, at Chace Lake Park on Aug. 11 for a cleanup event.
Litter may be a global problem, but Hoover High students Shehzan Maredia and Pippa Lother know they can put in the work to make their corner of the world a little cleaner.
Maredia and Lother started the CleanHoover Initiative in December to clean up some of the city’s parks and talk with businesses about reducing their environmental impact. Both students had an interest in environmental causes for a while and didn’t want to wait to start making a difference of their own, and Maredia said the Parks & Recreation department of the city showed them where there was an immediate need.
The CleanHoover Initiative held its first cleanup day at Chace Lake Park in March, followed by ___ more throughout the year, with the most recent one in August. Maredia and Lother have been joined by other students, family, friends and even teachers to fill trash bags with bottles, Styrofoam plates, cigarette butts, fishing lines and other trash dumped at the park.
“We’ve been picking up more and more as we’ve had more help,” Maredia said.
At their first cleanup, Lother said they filled 12 industrial-sized garbage bags with trash in two hours.
Maredia said ongoing cleanup work will “maintain the beauty and the function of this park.”
The pair have also talked to businesses near the Chace Lake Park about putting up signs reminding people not to litter and reducing their use of Styrofoam cups, plates and to-go boxes. While they haven’t seen much progress on that front, Maredia and Lother said businesses have been “pretty positive about it” and they hope to encourage reduction of single-use, disposable products in restaurants and other Hoover businesses.
Part of the problem, Maredia said, is that many people don’t see the impact their litter causes. One dropped bottle may not seem like much, but it can lead to serious environmental problems when dozens or hundreds of people think the same way.
Cleanup projects are good, Maredia said, but making more people aware of their trash’s impact is also a goal for the Initiative to “prevent the litter from coming in the first place.”
“We want there to be more understanding of how the ecosystem works,” Lother said.
Chace Lake Park, in addition to its recreational value, is also next to the Cahaba River and much of the trash that gets dropped at the park can flow into the water system, which supports not only animal and plant life but also local drinking water.
“I doubt if people know the Cahaba is right there and they’re drinking the water they pollute,” Lother said.
Photo courtesy of Shehzan Maredia.
Hoover High students pick up litter at Chace Lake Park.
“People don’t realize how far their trash can go,” Maredia said.
Lother said they would like to expand the CleanHoover Initiative not only to Spain Park High School, but also the rest of the Hoover school system so each school could be assigned to take care of a designated park. She and Maredia have begun talking to some of the schools about this.
They also would like to begin tree planting around Hoover and approach the school system about installing more recycle bins and water fountains with spouts for reusable bottles in the city’s schools.
“We definitely want to expand a lot more. There’s a lot to do in Hoover,” Maredia said, noting Star Lake and Moss Rock Preserve as priorities for litter cleanup projects.
“If we help out here, we’re doing our chunk of good in the world,” Lother said.
Contact Maredia at shehzan.s.maredia@gmail.com and Lother at pippalother@gmail.com for more information about the CleanHoover Initiative.
