Cleaning Cycle 
Two bicyclists make their way down the East Bay Bike Path as Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Lisa Machon (left) and her mom Cathy Machon (right) carry bags of trash.
Story and photos by PA2 Lauren Jorgensen
Torn carpet, gasoline tanks, tennis balls and plastic foam aren't things most people expect to see strewn along a beachside bicycle trail. But that is just a small bit of the litter a group of volunteers picked up on a drizzly Saturday morning next to a mile-long stretch of the East Bay Bike Path in East Providence, R.I.
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| Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Robert Resendes picks up a piece of torn fabric to throw away during the cleanup. |
In three hours, the 20-person cleaning crew, made up of men and women from the U.S. Coast Guard and the East Providence Police Department, filled about 160 garbage bags with debris that had built up over several years.
Chief Petty Officer Robert Resendes organized the cleanup of his hometown during downtime in the Coast Guard First District Command Center in Boston, where he works full time.
Resendes uses the East Bay Bike Path, which runs parallel to Narragansett Bay, several times a week and said he always notices the garbage.
"This is what's happening in our town," he said. "We need to do something about it."
He and a friend tried to collect large pieces of debris as they came across them, but he said it would have taken forever with just two people recovering all the trash. So he chose May 3 as the cleanup day and spread the word through emails and Internet listings.
Save the Bay, an organization aimed to protect Narragansett Bay, and the city of East Providence donated garbage bags and gloves, and volunteers from the Coast Guard and the police department showed up to help.
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| Tom Aguiar of the East Providence Police Department picks up trash between Narragansett Bay and the East Bay Bike Path. |
The smell of rotten food and gasoline seeped out from between the rocks as the volunteers picked up beer cans and water bottles. Plastic shopping bags were wrapped around driftwood like vines on a tree. Sleeping bags and pieces of carpet had been there for so long that grass and weeds were growing through them, locking them into the earth beneath.
The litter made a lasting impression on those who were collecting it.
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| Resendes stands next to a pile of garbage the group collected throughout the day. |
"It's unbelievable how much foam is out here," said Tom Aguiar, of the East Providence Police Department, as he picked up a piece the size of a small cooler. "I'm never drinking coffee out of a foam cup anymore. I'll bring a mug to the coffee shop to refill from now on."
Resendes said he thinks the little bit of donated time made a big difference. As cyclists and joggers passed by the piles of garbage bags, tires and scrap metal, they always looked at it. And occasionally they would stop to thank the cleaning crew and tell them they were doing a great job.
Around 12:30 p.m., when the garbage bags ran out and the rain started to pick up, the volunteers left. Resendes reluctantly headed home.
"If we had more bags, we would have kept going," he said.
But he's still not stopping. He has plans to organize several more cleaning days in various locations throughout the summer.
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