Howard Hardee
Before heading out to pick up trash, David McGarey (left) tests his DIPPUL stick while Zach Armstrong (right) takes a sip from a beer hoisted in one.
Mike Parks squints into the bright springtime sun, addressing a buzzing crowd in the backyard of his neighbor’s house with a megaphone. He makes a fancy show of demonstrating how to use a trash-picker, flourishing it like an infantryman’s rifle, then dishes out sage advice: “If you’re doing partners DIPPUL, where one person’s holding the bag and the other is picking trash, try to have the more sober person doing the picking.”
Parks is laying the ground rules for the first-ever Drunk In Public Picking Up Litter (DIPPUL), a pub crawl/trash pick-up event held April 20.
First off, everyone needs at least one “accountabilabuddy,” a term coined by South Park. In this context, you make sure your accountabilabuddy doesn’t get struck by traffic or pulled down a storm drain by a clown, and they do the same for you. He explains the route to three participating bars on Madison’s near east side — The Robin Room, Caribou Tavern and LJ’s Sports Tavern and Grill, all offering DIPPUL-specific drink specials. And he urges everyone to use a trash-picker, otherwise known as a “DIPPUL stick,” when approaching potentially dangerous objects. Finally, he says not to BYOB, lest volunteers run afoul of the city’s open-carry laws.
“Chill out, have a good time,” he says. “Bring some water and suntan lotion. If you need bug spray, whatever, make sure you put that on. You know, safety first. We have a bunch of plastic gloves — latex-free, powder-free and, uh, with powder. I don’t know. Any questions?”
“What’s your sign?” asks someone in the crowd.
“Aquarius the beer brand,” Parks responds without missing a beat. Moments later, he’s strapping a small orange life vest around his torso, because of course “safety first.”
Parks, 36, is a military veteran and IT professional. He later tells Isthmus that he came up with the idea for DIPPUL about a year ago, separately from the national #Trashtag movement. He did a couple of “solo DIPPULs” (probably inaccurate to call them dry runs) during which he picked up trash in his neighborhood, brought it home and had a beer, then did it again. Convinced he was on to something, he started inviting his friends and getting local bars on board with the idea.
Starting on North Brearly Street, the volunteers today fan out into the surrounding neighborhood, squawking when they come across anything bigger than a beer cap. As per Parks’ instructions, when a DIPPULer picks up a plastic straw, she or he yells “Viva!” and the rest of the crew answers by shouting “La tortuga!” (“Long live the turtles.”)
Imaginary points are awarded for picking up multiple items at once (“double DIPPUL,” “triple DIPPUL,” etc.). The record is an “octa-DIPPUL,” which UW-Madison grad student Zach Armstrong, one of my accountabilabuddies, won’t shut up about. The most common refuse, by far, is cigarette butts. Special reverence is paid to objects that reflect the sun (“shiny DIPPUL”); take extra effort to extract (“diligent DIPPUL”); or present a hazard, like syringes and broken glass (“danger DIPPUL”). One shockingly naïve participant — okay, it’s me — proclaims to have found an oddly heavy sandwich in a brown paper bag, then discovers a full bottle of Jim Beam.
The event is most heartwarming — not to be confused with the alcohol burning your esophagus — when volunteers interact with the general public. Possibly because it is the first truly beautiful day of spring and spirits are high, passersby routinely thank the trash-pickers for cleaning up the streets and sidewalks, unaware that the outing is more self-indulgent than it appears. Several participants report an unprecedented sense of altruism growing with each passing beer, and that it feels good.
Parks knew about this phenomenon going into the event, he says: “It’s a like a gateway community service.”
Plastic that ends up in the oceans every year: 8 million tons
Marine animals killed by plastic every year: More than 1 million
Trash that Madison streets department collected from households in 2018: 43,284.62 tons
Estimated DIPPULers on April 20: 50
Bags of trash collected: Who’s counting? Seriously — anybody?
“Fresh DIPPUL”: Food that is still edible for humans.
“Self DIPPUL”: A crude form of personal hygiene practiced by inebriates.
