Because I have tons of time on my hands (*cough, cough), I decided I'd start a new documentation and, hopefully, advocacy project: Respect Prospect. (shoutout to Candace for the name!) It's like this: I go to Prospect Park almost every morning with Izzy Louise to run around, because dogs are allowed off-leash from 5AM to 9AM. But! There's often so much garbage strewn about the park that I can't let her off the leash — unlike dogs with sturdier bellies, she gets sick from eating garbage. A lot of other people are frustrated with this, too. Garbage means more unsavory rodents and other creatures hanging about, which could mean more disease spreading. No good and no fun for anyone.

Park officials aren't super responsive (besides saying that closed dumps on a holiday mean that the park gets trashed, oh well), and no one's sure what to do. At the very least, to start with, we can document it when we see it:

• Email or text pictures (or video!) of garbage in the park to pics@respectprospect.com
• Have a look at the Respect Prospect blog, where photos will be posted
• Follow @respectprospect on Twitter, and tag tweets about the problem with #respectprospect
• Check out the Respect Prospect Flickr stream.
• New! Download this PDF and print out little cards to hand out at the park. These print onto any biz cards using the #8371 Avery template. I used this clean-edge version from Avery, #8871.
• Questions and other inquiries can be sent to info@respectprospect.com