Love and care for a cleaner community
Observer-Reporter
Fern Sibert stands with volunteer Scott Ward as they clean up trash at the Jefferson Avenue exit of Interstate 70 in Washington in this file photo from February 2020.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Fern Sibert picks up trash at the Jefferson Avenue exit of Interstate 70 in Washington.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Fern Sibert started picking up litter in Washington five years ago.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
A stack of recycled and painted tires sat in Mayor’s Park on Jefferson Avenue in Washington, near the Interstate 70 ramp.
Courtesy of Fern Sibert
Fern Sibert recycled old tires, painted them and turned them into cute decorations to put in the city’s public spaces, parks and playgrounds.
Many in Washington County know Fern Sibert by her bright orange vest, trash picker tool and big black garbage bag in hand. On nice days between March and November, she’s usually out at one of the Washington exits of Interstate 70, picking up trash.
“If the weatherman says it will be 45 degrees or above, you’ll usually catch me out there,” she said.
Sibert, 66, has lived in Washington 17 years, and in the county since 1980. Five years ago, she decided to start picking up litter – she was sick of looking at it.
“My family was coming in for Easter, and I was embarrassed for the place I live because the exit ramps were so full of trash,” she said. “I thought, ‘I can’t let my family come back to town and have the first thing they see is all this trash.'”
She typically picks up trash from the I-70 ramps at Jefferson, Jessop Place, Chestnut and Beau streets, but she’s hit other areas along the Route 19 corridor and in her own Washington neighborhood.
“Even though people have adopted a highway, there’s so much more trash that needs to be picked up,” she said. “It looks nice when it gets cleaned up.”
She used to clean houses for a living, but the chemicals in the cleaning products burned her lungs, she said. So now, she cleans outside.
“I love a clean county,” she said. “I don’t like to see trash. It just makes people happier when things are clean.”
In the five years of cleaning up trash, Sibert has seen it all. She said a lot of people somehow lose their car keys. She once returned a set to Planet Fitness on Racetrack Road, thanks to the Planet Fitness tag attached to the key ring.
She’s found bags of groceries and Halloween decorations that fell out of cars and even a six-pack of unopened beer. She’s found money hidden in a McDonald’s bag and tax documents littered on embankments.
“I did find a shower stall at the Jefferson Avenue exit once,” Sibert said. “When PennDOT came to pick up trash, they grabbed that, too.”
She often comes across larger appliances and mattresses too. In those cases, she notifies the state Department of Transportation, so when crews pick up the bags of trash she leaves for them, they’ll retrieve the large items, too.
“The only thing that I was able to physically pick up was a microwave and an air conditioner,” she said. “I did pick up a dresser once, but that’s because it was in about 45 pieces, and all the clothes that were in it were scattered all over.”
When she returns to the exits each week, it appears as if she hadn’t been there the week before: the area is strewn with new trash. Sometimes, in the time it takes her to walk up an exit picking up trash, she’ll find newly disposed of litter on the way back. It can be disheartening, but she never gives up.
“It’s disappointing, but I don’t want to say hopeless,” she said. “If people see me out here maybe they’ll be inspired to do their own area where they live.”
Last November, Sibert found about 60 tires in four blocks of the city. She decided to start recycling them. She painted several of them and stacked them together to make decorative snowmen and Christmas decorations, which she placed in Mayor’s Park, on Jefferson Avenue, and near Highland Ridge.
She wants to recycle more tires, paint them and turn them into raised garden beds for the city’s parks and playground areas.
“If people want to learn how to do it, I’d be happy to help them,” she said.
Sibert recent established a Facebook page, “Clean Up Our County,” to help her organize volunteers who want to help her cause. It has 49 members.
“Most of our volunteers are above 50 years old, unless we get a high school group or some of the college students to help for a day,” she said.
She’s hoping to organize some cleanup days leading up to Easter this year, so the city looks nice for the holiday. Once those dates are set up, they’ll be advertised on the Facebook page. The city will also host its annual cleanup day, typically at the end of April, according to Mayor Scott Putnam.
“So many people are just so disrespectful, so it’s just a constant effort to clean up the city,” he said.
Putnam and the rest of City Council presented Fern with a proclamation last year, thanking her for her hard work in cleaning up the city.
“We’re so thankful she’s in Washington, and we’re very proud of the hard work that she does,” Putnam said.
Though it’s definitely hard work, Sibert said it can be “a lot of fun, too.”
“My granddaughter told me, ‘I really feel good going out and doing this with you, Grandma,'” Sibert said.