June 5, 2008 issue
One Piece of Trash At a Time
Cindy Ball and Her Puppets Use Litter To Educate Youth
Story by Anna Oakes
Editor’s Note: This article is among several in a series recognizing people in our community who work to clean up litter, educate others about litter and prevent the problem.
Ever heard the phrase “Fight fire with fire?” Cindy Ball is doing precisely that—she’s using litter to fight litter.
Using the various pieces of garbage people choose to improperly discard along roadsides and rivers, Ball reuses the materials to create puppets. Then, she and her peculiar-looking friends present educational shows for children about litter prevention and recycling.
“I really love creating the stories of puppets and creating characters,” Ball said. “It’s really fun.”
About five years ago, Ball’s toddler son started talking about litter, and she took notice.
“I thought, ‘Let’s clean it up,’” she said. “I thought about how to put it to work and make it something beautiful.”
One prime location for litter materials was the New River, where Ball enjoys kayaking. “I really saw all the trash on the river,” she said. Ball used trash collected from river cleanups to begin crafting her puppets. She used Styrofoam to make different shapes. She incorporated towels, innertubes, shoes, bottles, bottle caps, a baseball bat and glove, big containers, coffee cans, milk jugs and a garden hose into her characters.
The superhero puppets include Junkella, a female character, Batty—whose body is a baseball bat—and Ace, an awkward-looking chap with one shoe for a leg.
Working with the Elkland Art Center in Todd, the Watauga Public Library and MountainKeepers, an organization committed to the safekeeping of High Country communities, Ball and the Litter Brigade presented informational shows for preschool children in the area. Nancy Spann, a member of MountainKeepers, assisted Ball with the Litter Brigade.
In April, Ball was invited to participate at the inaugural Planet Earth Celebration, presented by Burt’s Bees. At the event, held at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, Ball operated a station where participants could create their own litter puppets. Afterwards, the litter puppets joined together for a litter parade in downtown Raleigh.
The kids love it, but are also a little disgusted by the trashy, not-so-cuddly characters, Ball said. “It makes them think about it,” she added, “about how we normalize litter and are not appalled every time we see it like we should be.”
Currently, Ball and the Elkland Art Center are at work on a new puppet production titled Jason’s Dream, written by Mary Gray. The 30-minute skit finds Jason dreaming about being in a landfill, where various trash characters—a newspaper man and a plastic bag lady, for example—are dismayed because they are trapped in the landfill instead of being put to use somewhere else. The focus is on recycling and sustainability, Ball said.
Of course, the characters are made of recycled materials, including plastic bags and papier-mâchéd newspaper. “I just go to my recycling bin and get to work,” Ball said.
In collaboration with Watauga County Recycling Coordinator Lisa Doty, Ball and her Elkland Art Center colleagues will present Jason’s Dream to all third graders in the county this fall.
To learn more about Elkland Art Center projects, call 336-877-5016 or click to www.elklandartcenter.org.
Stop the Litter! Recognizes Businesses
The MountainKeepers Stop the Litter! committee would like to recognize businesses in the community who are working to keep their properties clean.
“Especially those kinds of places where it’s not surprising to see litter, and yet there is no litter—or those businesses that are doing something very special about keeping their surroundings litter-free,” said Nancy Reigel, member of the Stop the Litter! committee.
Businesses who are recognized will receive a letter of appreciation and one of the Stop the Litter! decals to display. The first business to be recognized was the Valle Crucis Conference Center. Employees there clean up litter along their roadsides on a weekly basis, Reigel said.
Stop the Litter! committee Chair Ron Redmon said the committee specifically wants to recognize the individuals responsible for the property’s upkeep—not just the business or organization as a whole.
“This is a very selective thing,” he said. “We try to seek out the person in charge.”
The committee has also recognized Stephen Poulos, director of Watauga County Parks and Recreation, and Venda Lerch of the McDonalds in Boone.
Reigel said the committee would like to receive feedback and suggestions from businesses about how this program can be even more valuable for them.
For more information about the business recognition program, contact Reigel at 828-268-0637 or Ron Redmon at 828-297-9595.
Also: this lady is supposed to email me a photo tonight, maybe you could do the pull quote kinda big just in case it comes in and we want to use it instead?
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