Please Stop Doing This In New York State Parks

I wouldn't go so far as to call myself an environmentalist, but every time I see this in a state park, it drives me crazy.

Earlier this week, I was visiting Evangola State Park to play a couple of holes of disc golf. We like to hit up as many of these courses as we possibly can in the summer. It's just nice to get out for some fresh air and a healthy walk. But it never fails, every single place we go to, we find trash that people have left behind. You'll see everything from empty beer and pop cans to Tim Horton's cups and candy bar wrappers.

I'm sure there are instances where this isn't intentional. Maybe someone put their trash in a trash can, and it blew back out. Maybe they set it down for a second and just forgot about it. Unfortunately, I believe in most cases, it's just lazy, disgusting behavior. Who in the world thinks that anyone else should clean up after them? You bring it into the woods, you bring it out of the woods. We've always heard that you should leave a place better than you found it, and this is the case here.

Our New York parks are beautiful, and it's up to us to keep them that way. Just think about how much better those parks could be if resources weren't having to be spent on keeping them clean and they could be devoted to upkeep instead.

I know I sound old here, but I can't tell you how much we see this when we're walking through these parks. Yes, I picked that cup up before I left. Now get off my lawn.