Evanston RoundTable, May 21, 2025
Taking advantage of the beautiful spring weather — sunny and sixtyish — on Earth Day Sunday, I made my first foray of the year to Butler Park.
Butler is a lovely half-mile-or-so stretch of park land between Simpson Street on the north and Emerson Street on the south, just east of the North Shore Channel. It has an enticing and well-used path for running, walking and biking; exercise equipment; kiddie playground; soccer fields; and picnic benches in a covered pavilion.
Except for in the picnic area, what it doesn’t have are many trash cans. The result, unfortunately, is lots of litter.
I know this because I am the self-appointed volunteer park “steward.” Every other week or so from late April to late October, I ride my bike to the Hill Arboretum apartments at the northern end and cruise the path, stopping to pick up litter. I’ve been doing it (and writing about it) for years. I do it as a way to give something back to the city and parks I love — as well as for the exercise.
Trash trove
But this year, for some reason (maybe the mild winter?), I found way more trash than usual for a first spring outing, filling up a huge plastic bag with all manner of garbage, mostly plastic, mostly blown against the fence that separates the park from the adjacent North Shore Channel. And this was only in the northern half of the park, which was as far as I got before I had to retire due to exhaustion.
While a good safety and security measure, the park-length fence makes cleaning up a lot harder, because to get at the trash I have to fight the thick bushes that have taken root there. For that reason I wear goggles and a bike helmet and have learned to ease my way fanny-first into the prickly greenery to carefully pick up (with my bike gloves) the hundreds of items that have blown in over the winter.
There were so many I decided to catalog the mess. I picked up, in no particular order: wrappers, bags, cartons and boxes of New Zealand manuka honey, Throwback French vanilla cigars, Barilla spaghetti, Mini Chips Ahoy, Goldfish cheddar cheese-flavored crackers, Diamond kitchen matches, Nerds Gummy Clusters, Skinny Pop popcorn, Almond Joy bars, Capri Sun juice drinks, Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars, Benton’s Mini Cookies, graham crackers, Backwoods Russian Cream cigars, Swisher Sweets cigars, Doritos Flamin’ Hot Nacho chips, La Molianda Mixnut bars, Cheetos Xxtra Flamin’ Hot cheese-flavored chips, TJ Maxx grocery bags, Bisconni Cocomo chocolate-filled biscuits, Rich’s Cotton Candy Twirls, Hi-Chew Sour Citrus-flavored chewies, Goldfish 100% cheddar cheese, Extra polar ice gum, West Creek mayonnaise, Nature Valley crunchy oats and honey bar, Mott’s Assorted Fruit Flavored Snacks, Lifesavers Gummies, Collisions pineapple punch, Carnitas slow-cooked pork, Pirates Booty aged white cheddar chips, Torie & Howard Chewie-Fruities, KitKat, Sour Patch tropical flavored chew candies, Dorito cool ranch chips, Almond Joy king size, White Claw vodka, Panda Express Chinese takeout container, two blue Easter egg cups, Burger King hamburger container, Snickers bar, Fire Spfireworks.com Twitter Glitter container, Aldi paper bag (emblazoned “Bye-bye plastic”), Cheetos Flamin’ Hot Puffs, Reese’s Fast Break Peanut Butter bar, Gorilla Soldier sticker, small cup holders for sauce (presumably), Miller Genuine Draft bottle, Cheetos Crunchy Cheese-Flavored snack, Hostess frosted doughnuts, Sour Patch Kids Ornaments, several McCafe coffee cups and a honey-flavored plastic lip balm container.
Also multiple glass bottles (Ice House, Budweiser, Ice Mountain, Corona), two bags of dog poop, a metal tube, one plastic glove, one discarded face mask (way fewer than in the pandemic years), two water bottles, a small photo of a teenage girl, one somewhat squishy ball wrapped in a rolled-up sock I was afraid to unroll and a pair of unlaced running shoes.
And that’s not even the half of it! There were too-numerous-to-count plastic containers, paper bags, paper cups and other similar but unidentifiable objets d’junk.
Just one word
Why the list? I dunno: Cuz it was fascinating? Really just to convey the sheer mass and variety, reflective of the American food and beverage industry’s seemingly inexhaustible proficiency at spewing out mostly worthless and nutrition-robbing junk, which after being consumed is thoughtlessly tossed aside as litter.
Almost all the items were made from plastic, which put me in mind of the scene from the 1967 film The Graduate where the dunderhead Mr. McGuire urges Dustin Hoffman’s character: “I just want to say one word to you — plastics.” We laughed then, but now, with our seas, land and even bodies inundated and compromised by “plastics,” we cringe. What have we unleashed?
Worse in terms of safety: hundreds of shards of broken glass by the benches under the pavilion. I dialed 311 and left a message for the city to dispatch a cleanup crew pronto, before some bike rider sustained a flat tire or some barefoot toddler cut her bare foot on it.
The park honors the memory of Isabella Butler, a Black physician who helped found Community Hospital, which was situated where the Hill Arboretum Apartments are located today. Ms. Butler deserves better. We all do.
The Illinois legislature is considering a bill to phase out single-use plastic bags and another, SB 1531, to ban foam food containers, the latter sponsored by our local state Sen. Laura Fine (with 44 co-sponsors, including state House Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz and Robyn Gabel). Fine points to data that says some 22 million pounds of plastic annually flow into the Great Lakes, and less than 1% of foam gets recycled.
While these bills won’t address the problem of discarded plastic wrappers — only heightened awareness and a greater sense of civic responsibility will, plus more park trash containers — it’s a good start toward a world less threatened by and permeated with plastic.
In the meantime, consider signing up with the city to join the Adopt a Park program. Almost 50 Evanston parks are looking for volunteer helpers. Do your city — and yourself — a big favor!