Colorado woman spends vacation crisscrossing the U.S., picking up trash

A person throws away garbage.
(Image credit: iStock)

When Stefani Shamrowicz decided to go on a "spontaneous road trip" across the United States, it wasn't just so she could visit family and friends — she also wanted to pick up trash along the way.

Shamrowicz, 24, lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and got the idea to go on litter patrol after Earth Day, when she had a month off of work. During her journey, Shamrowicz picked up more than 125 bags of trash, containing over 1,600 gallons of garbage. She estimates that 80 percent of the trash she picked up was plastic bottles, with face masks also a common sight.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.