When the weather’s clear, Tim Raye can be found walking on the side of a road somewhere in Hancock County, filling up a trash bag.
Since retiring several years ago from his manual labor job of cutting stone in Deer Isle, Raye, 68, has spent most days picking up returnables. In his hometown on the island, he also collects trash he can take to the town transfer station.
It keeps him off the couch, gets him in nature and helps clean up the outdoors while earning extra spending money from bottle and can deposits. Raye’s approach shows one way Mainers have sought solutions as gas prices soar — hitting an average of $4.24 a gallon in the Bangor area this week, up $1.25 from a year ago — amid an ongoing affordability crunch.
“It pays for the gas going back and forth. It pays for the boots,” he said. “I go through a pair of boots a year. Wear ‘em right out.”
Maine’s redemption program started in the 1970s to deter people from littering by adding deposits on recyclable beverage containers. Those are now 5 or 15 cents, depending on the type of beverage. Only about 75% are returned, industry experts said this year when an unsuccessful state bill was introduced to direct $10-16 million in annual unclaimed deposits toward conservation programs.
Raye knows of several other regular roadside walkers cleaning up trash and containers around Deer Isle, mostly dedicated to their neighborhoods, and joined a recent cleanup event there himself. Community road cleanups have been held in local towns this month, and more are scheduled for Saturday, the state’s Community Litter Cleanup Day. But he takes it (many) steps farther.
Raye now cleans up several miles of road a day or more on most clear days — a loop of Deer Isle-Stonington is nine miles, but farther from home he doesn’t always track.
He heads out throughout the year, though not often this past winter, when more snow meant banks that covered up trash and didn’t give him room to jump out of the way if a passing car began to slide.
The cleanups are an alternative of sorts to hiking. He’s visited most preserves around the peninsula, Raye said, but you can only do those so many times. And gas costs too much now for driving to Bar Harbor, where he also used to hike.
Day to day, the treks also provide room to daydream and get philosophical, he said, like a time he approached a warbler that seemed totally unafraid.
“I probably could have reached out, poked it in the eye, but it didn’t bother it that I was there, and so I watched it,” he said. “It was right in the early spring, leaves were just starting to unroll. And I watched this thing pick a grub or a worm out of at least every other leaf, maybe more.”
That made him think about how many bugs it takes for a bird to survive, and wonder if holes he sees in leafy trees means there aren’t enough birds left to keep up.
Then there was a beautiful young northern water snake that attacked his boot, the time he saw a bobcat up close where it lay dead on the side of the road and the leech-covered plastic bags Raye finds in gullies with standing water.
He’s mostly left undisturbed on the road shoulders, though cars often honk. Sometimes, he finds bags of donated returnables waiting at his car, a sign he’s become a familiar figure; Raye is offline, but has also heard rumors of a social media page sharing his whereabouts.
Seeing trash along the roadside can be aggravating, he said, especially when he leaves the transfer station just to see more garbage along the road he cleaned — though Raye thinks most people don’t litter, and some likely blows off the back of pickup trucks.
He often finds tools, once an iPad that he turned into law enforcement, and recently a collection of laminated newspapers from the 1970s.
What caught his eye there was an ad for a $25 gasoline-powered mower — back when things were affordable, he said. Adjusted for inflation, that’s still about half the cost of gas mowers in Maine today.
Returning to his car on Tuesday after a cleanup on the way home from an errand in Bangor, Raye had a full bag of returnables to add to others in the back seat. The money he’ll get from them will help pay for groceries, including some items that cost more than a dollar more than they did pre-pandemic.
“If I’m going to Ellsworth to do some shopping, it pays for the gas,” he said of the hobby. “A little bit more, you know, takes me out to lunch or something. Buys the milk.”
