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Raleigh man fills 2,000 bags of trash, inspires neighbors to join in cleanup

A 62-year-old computer programmer at Meredith College has spent his free time and weekends picking up trash along roads in east Raleigh and logging his adventures in a composition notebook he found on the side of the road.

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By
Joe Fisher
, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — Gus Vandermeeren was sitting on his couch in January 2020 when a commercial about plastic in ocean appeared on his TV.

“I sat there and thought, ‘what the hell am I doing?’” he said.

Ever since that day, the 62-year-old computer programmer at Meredith College has spent his free time and weekends picking up trash along roads in east Raleigh and logging his adventures in a composition notebook he found on the side of the road.

“Pretty soon, it became a passion [and] obsession,” he said. “I have always had a feeling that I am not really happy unless I am being useful to society in some way.”

In about 15 months, Vandermeeren filled more than 2,000 large bags of trash and personally dropped them off at the landfill.

Raleigh man fills 2,000 bags of trash, inspires neighbors to join in cleanup

He has even recruited a small army of volunteers — about 25 — who either saw him working or read about his litter cleanup on NextDoor.

“We all have to have a little bit of Gus inside of us,” said Trent Parson, 29, who volunteered a couple hours one Saturday in March.

Parson said he wants other millennials to step up to tackle the trash piling up on roads throughout the city and the region.

“It’s really hard to get other people to be less of themselves,” he said. “We have to make this world a better place for all of us.”

Vandermeeren has officially adopted two state roads through the North Carolina Department of Transportation, including New Bern Avenue from the Neuse River to Corporation Parkway and Raleigh Beach Road.

“This is not a job for a perfectionist,” said Vandermeeren. “Even if it gets really dirty again, it doesn’t change the fact that every piece of plastic I just picked up and put in my bag is never going to go in the creek somewhere [and] is never going to float out into the ocean somewhere.”

Vandermeeren is organizing a litter cleanup event on April 24 at 9 a.m. in the area of New Bern Avenue and I-440.

For more specific details and to join Vandermeeren's mailing list, email him at gusvdm@gmail.com

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