Stewardship on the W&OD Trail

Most people who live in Northern Virginia are only a few minutes away from one of the many urban trails that crisscross the area. I'm about a mile from the W&OD, a trail that stretches from Arlington to Purceville, connecting to other trails along the way.

The W&OD is often described as the narrowest state park in Virginia. When I'm jogging on the trail and a cyclist passes on the left, I can really feel how narrow is the W&OD.

But while it's narrow, it's never really crowded. Last year, my wife and I trained for our McDonald's half marathon on the trail and welcomed the people biking, walking, blading and, or course, running on the trail.

However, like most of our state and national parks, the W&OD occasionally is used like a trash can by some people. I was on a short run Saturday and when less than a half mile from my car, I came across a plastic water bottle tossed onto the trailside.

The 20 oz bottle of Nestle water lay on the grass. I picked it up, carried it the half mile to my car and then drove home with it to toss into my recycle bin. It wasn't hard to do. Why couldn't the person who drank the water from it carry it home, too? We'll never know.

One thing that I do know, plastic bottles are improperly disposed of everywhere. And even when we take them home and recycle them, they may not be recycled properly.

For example, most of us think that when we screw the cap back onto a plastic bottle of water, toss it into a bin and then the bin is picked up by a waste recycle company that all is fine. Not! Plastic bottle caps and the plastic bottles themselves are can't be recycled with the same process. Often the bottle caps are discarded, not recycled and end up in land fills or worse -- in our oceans, rivers and bays.

National Public Radio discusses the ins-and-outs of plastic bottle cap recycling here. Locally, all of us can take advantage of plastic bottle cap recycling program launched by Aveda, the skin care company. There's an Aveda store that accepts bottle caps in the Tyson's mall -- less than two miles from where the W&OD crosses Gallows Road.

The W&OD sees tens of thousands of people each year, a few of them are lazy or just don't care. The rest of us should. Take a moment and pick up a bottle that you see and dispose of it properly, keeping the W&OD clean and being a good steward of the green world around us.

It's true that the park is remarkably well maintained. State personnel take care of the park, but so does a dedicated group of volunteers who comprise the Friends of the W&OD.

The Friends of the W&OD understand the meaning of stewardship. The group's been around since 1991 and regularly holds trail clean up days, and probably as important, the FOWOD frequently patrol the trail. Trail patrols are aimed at helping users of the trail stay safe, promote safe use of the trail and educate the public about the W&OD.

The W&OD is a public resource that all of us who live near it must protect. The W&OD can connect users to the C&O bike and hiking trail, and to trails that lead to Great Falls Park.

So, whether you run the trail, bike it or just like to stroll along, the W&OD deserves our appreciation and stewardship, one bottle at a time. See you on the trail.