Business & Tech

JFK Students Made a Difference: Parkway Trash Close to Being Picked Up

JFK High School's Eco-Friendly Club's efforts seem to be paying off: trash dumped between railroad tracks and Route 27 in Iselin isn't being ignored


High schoolers at John F. Kennedy High School in Iselin really wanted to make a difference.

When members of the school's Eco-Friendly Club saw a mess blowing down Route 27 near MetroPark in Iselin and the Garden State Parkway entrance,  they didn't walk away. Club members approached the township to get permission to clean the trash up.

They were told it was too dangerous for the students to be on the strip of land between railroad tracks and busy Route 27, and that New Jersey Transit had responsibility for the land. So the students put up an Internet petition to get the debris cleaned up, and within weeks, it's had an effect.

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There's just a small problem: New Jersey Transit has nothing to do with the MetroPark tracks, the land surrounding it, or the trash that blows onto it. The tracks running through that part of Woodbridge are owned by Amtrak, said NJ Transit spokesman John Durso.

The good news is that Amtrak is taking the problem - and the students' petition - seriously.

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Eco-Friendly Club Vice President Ileana Arce, who put up the petition on change.org, is thrilled. "Who would have thought a high school student could make a difference?" the 15-year-old high school junior said. 

JFK teacher and club advisor Danielle Sawyer said a colleague had noted that when visitors get off the Parkway onto Route 27, the trash is the first thing they see.

"It gives a bad impression of the town. It doesn't have to be that way," Sawyer said.

Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said he took a Patch article about the trash mess and the students' effort to organize a cleanup to Amtrak's engineering department.

"They said they'd send someone out to do an evaluation," Cole said.

That's to make sure they're just picking up average litter, as opposed to car tires, washing machines, and mattresses that people sometimes dump on railroad medians to avoid paying to haul the items away.

There's no word on exactly when the cleanup might take place. "We have a lot of property," Cole said. "But I'll make sure to follow up on it."

Late Thursday, another difficulty surfaced. Cole said that "a private party" may own the land where the trash is and have responsibility for cleaning it up.

The determination is being worked on, he said.

About 60 of the Eco-Friendly Club members are waiting, cameras in hand, to record the cleanup they had wanted to do themselves.

"I would love to take pictures when they clean it up. It's something to feel proud of and feel accomplished about," Arce said.

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