ROADSIDE PICKUP

Another cleanup drive has left the approaches to Acadia National Park restored temporarily to their pristine state. A record crew of 375 red-jacketed volunteers spent a strenuous three hours recently picking up trash and litter along 60 miles of state roads on Mount Desert Island and Trenton.

Men, women and children, including octogenarians and infants in backpacks, did the job. They worked in seven teams organized by Friends of Acadia. Each team was divided into smaller groups assigned to specified stretches of the roads. The organization supplied gloves and the red jackets. The Maine Department of Transportation picked up the plastic bags that the volunteers filled and left along the roadsides. The volunteers broke for a free lunch supplied by Wal-Mart at the Mount Desert Island Regional High School, just in time to miss an unexpected April blizzard.

The project manager, Matt Staggs, administrative assistant of Friends of Acadia, says the litter included waste paper, cans, bottles, old boots and shoes, rusted mufflers, lottery tickets, discarded sunglasses, and even some children’s plastic swimming pools.

One volunteer found a fortune-cookie message that said, “You are interested in public service.” Mr. Staggs is still figuring the total but has a preliminary estimate of 700 to 1,100 trash bags and eight tons in all.

If visitors to the park now will take the hint and dispose of their trash properly instead of flinging bottles and wrappings out of the car windows, the tonnage next year may be reduced.

But a certain amount of thoughtlessness seems inevitable, and the volunteers can be counted on to fix things again next spring.