“The environment was here before any of us. We came and took what we thought was ours,” Ryan Doherty, president of Point Park’s newest club, the Pioneer Green Collective, said.
Since its inception, the club has picked three parks around the city clean of litter. According to Doherty, the West End Overlook, Mount Washington Park and Emerald View Park have all been tidied up.
The club is waiting for the last of the season’s snow to melt before returning to operations as usual.
“When we complete [cleaning a park] it’s a really fulfilling feeling to see the change we did in such a short amount of time,” Doherty said. “It takes minimal effort to no effort at all.”
Doherty, a junior SAEM major, transferred to Point Park from Penn State Greater Allegheny last year to pursue his love of basketball and fashion.
While he said his first year at the university was consumed by his passion for the sport, Doherty was moved to action last semester when the seed was planted during his community engagement class. There, he and his classmates came together to start a club called the Environmental Action Club.
According to Doherty, the club dispersed because of delays officiating the club through student government. He has since revived the concept to be the Pioneer Green Collective.
Doherty attributes his upbringing in Milford, a small Pennsylvania town located just outside of Scranton, to his interest in environmentalism.
“Nature has always been a part of me,” he said. “[Milford] is filled with nature. No pollution or littering.”
The Delaware River runs through his hometown like the three rivers run through Pittsburgh.
“I see Pittsburgh as a city in the middle of a forest,” Doherty said. “It is up to us as human beings to take care of what was here before it.”
Doherty acknowledged Pittsburgh’s steel mill past, and the Clairton factory explosion of the present, but is hopeful the city is moving in an environmentally friendly direction.
“As a collective, we are all waking up to the fact that we need to have a firm mindset on how to take care of where we live and not take it for granted,” he said.
Not taking the environment for granted is what Doherty said inspired the club’s park clean up initiative.
“The whole point of the parks is to connect humans back to nature,” he said, “So when you see trash and litter on the ground it’s a big ‘FU’ to the purpose of the parks.”
According to Doherty, most of the litter he collects consists of chip bags and other snack wrappers, items that are not biodegradable.
He said the club is working up to cleaning one park a week.
Doherty said he plans to put a Google Form in the club’s Instagram bio so anyone interested in volunteering can sign up.
