Green Up Day is Saturday, May 2. Grab a Green Up bag from your Vermont community and hit the streets if you’d like to pitch in. Now in its 45th year, Green Up Day has been a huge success, taking thousands of tons of litter off state and local roads annually. For more information, visit Green Up Vermont or ask your town clerk.

I’ve previously discussed how construction produces incomprehensible amounts of waste. What I didn’t mention is that construction workers, myself included, are chronic litterers. It’s hard to believe how quickly a job can break down your environmental conscience, but you could hire Arlo Guthrie to work on your house, and within five minutes he’d give Officer Obie a reason to arrest him all over again.

Case in point: I’m up on the roof installing shingles. They come in bags of 20, enough to cover about 45 square feet of roof, so what do I do with each empty bag? It’s too bulky to tuck in my tool belt, and it would disrupt my workflow to climb down and find a receptacle. So I just drop it. Maybe the bag stays on the roof where I can pick it up later, or maybe it blows away. I’m not proud to admit this, but in the moment I don’t really care.

What will you do with all the empty bags?

Which brings me back to Tiny Tuesday. Smaller buildings mean less shingles, housewrap, bent nails, etc., which means less litter, which means a healthier and more beautiful world. Isn’t that what Green Up Day is all about?