“This is unbelievable.”

Those are the words that most people say when they come out on their first forest clean-up in Francis Marion National Forest. Until you see the dump piles of shingles, diapers, mattresses, personal products, clothing, and construction debris, you can’t imagine that hidden within this 250,000 acre ecological habitat are hundreds of illegal dump sites.  Rather than take trash to the dump, people back up their trucks and trailers on forest service roads and leave their litter.

This year, our team worked a dirt road up near Cainhoy and removed two separate dump sites.

We removed used shingles, a plastic kids castle fort, clothing, a boxspring, children’s toys, shoes, pillows, diapers, purses (Coach and Kate Spade!), boots (Hunter and Ugg!) and furniture from a child’s room.

What we noticed was that these items were nice, and a lot of it was expensive or designer. People aren’t dumping in the forest because they have no other option or don’t know better.  They are doing it because they do not have a real connection with the outdoors.  People who hunt, fish, hike, camp, bird, mountain bike and garden don’t dump their trash in the National Forest because they value natural habitats.

We say that we’re “introducing Earthlings to Earth” through our kids programs, tours and foundation work. When we spend a morning cleaning up other people’s trash, it’s clear that getting people connected with the outdoors is important work.

Want to join us on an upcoming volunteer project? 

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