‘This is the time to get this taken care of’: Pocatello group cleans up trail garbage

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - A Pocatello group is working to clean the garbage off trails around town.

On Saturday, a small group gathered on the trail off of W. Clark Street to collect and dispose of garbage.

“Just trash everywhere and needles laying all over the place," Mitch Fisher said of the situation. "And it’s places that we could hike or bring your dog up to, but it’s not safe like this."

The trash on city trails has been an eyesore to many, but some, like Fisher, decided it was time for a change. 

"This is the time to get this taken care of before it gets worse," cleanup organizer Sergio Moreno said.  

Garbage is one thing - it's the needles that put pushed several members of the effort over the line. 

“I come out here quite a bit and I watch quite a few people here walking around, kids around, and I just find some needles," Moreno said. "I find like six needles out there and then today we find a whole bunch more down there ... so it’s quite a bit."

"The trash, that’s a whole nother thing," Fisher said. "I think people are just doing that out of laziness. They’re just driving up here and dumping the couch off 'cause they don’t want to take it to the dump and pay six bucks or whatever it is to go there."

The group found mail, children's toys, old TVs and whole a lot more. Fisher said the situation was worse than he originally thought.

The group hauled truckloads out of the ditches and into a dumpster the City of Pocatello provided. 

"It just needs to stop and hopefully, by us doing this, we can encourage other people and clean up the area not have it be a big trash heap," Shawn Lowry, a cleanup volunteer, said.