Raymond Block
"I love nature," says Raymond Block, founder of Leaven No Trace,
an organization dedicated to cleaning up roadside trash in western
Oregon. "I'm trying to be a voice for the animals, who do not have a
voice. They are our roommates on the planet, but we're not treating
them well." Block, who lives in Reedsport, is currently picking up
trash along Oregon Route 126 between Florence and Eugene. He clears
about one mile per day on both sides of the road, using a
squeeze-handle trash grabber to fill plastic bags, some with the
stenciled word CARE, others with an on-the-spot spray-painted emoji,
and leaves them beside the road. "I go out on a 10-day run," he
elaborates, "then back to Reedsport for three days." The Oregon
Department of Transportation (ODOT) in Lane County has been cooperative
in allowing the bags to remain in public view for a couple of days
before hauling them away. "It's all about awareness," he says. "This
Walk for Awareness will go as far as milepost 56, on the outskirts of
Eugene." Block's personal awareness emerged after moving from Arizona
to Coos Bay in 2012. "I was driving down Libby Lane on a regular
basis," he reports, "and I noticed how trash was accumulating and
spreading out." Soon afterwards, he began to devote half his working
hours to trash cleanup, and in 2015 he quit his handyman job to launch
Leaven No Trace and become a full-time picker-upper. His first Walk for
Awareness took seven months, from July of 2017 to February of 2018, and
spanned the length of U.S. Highway 101 in Oregon, 734 miles from the
California border to the Columbia River. His companions on these
outings are his mom Christy, who comes up from Arizona to help out with
camping and cooking chores and to greet motorists who stop by, and his
dog Leaven, who knows how to stay off the road. Learn more at
leavennotrace.org.
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 15 October 2020
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