ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Dan Muth is up and out the door before most of us get out of bed.
The retired engineer has made it a habit to start the day with a five mile walk around his West Orange County neighborhood.
“The doctor says it’s a good idea,” Muth said as he made his way down Chase Road. “It gives me a chance to think, a chance to say hi to the neighbors.”
But Muth never leaves the house without a couple of trash bags and a reach or grabber tool.
“When I would go on my walks, I’d just see stuff along the road. Well, I said, ‘I gotta live here so I started picking it up.”'
Muth says he can usually fill a shopping bag or two every morning.
People have noticed. One day, Betsy Middleton stopped to say thanks and tell Muth she was nominating him for the News 6 Getting Results Award.
”I drive Chase Road often, taking grandkids to school or running errands, and I saw this gentleman picking up trash while he walked, and I thought, Oh, how nice of him,” Middleton remembered. “Then I saw that he was there every day, doing this in all kinds of weather, and I said, wow, this really makes my heart feel good. You know, we need to see these kind of little things.”
Muth said he’s gotten ant bites and come across things he’d rather not have to pick up.
“One time I picked up a fresh bag of diapers. That was lovely,” he said with a laugh.
But none of that stops him. Muth says he hopes others see his story and decide to help out in their neighborhood as well.
“People will pass me by and say ‘oh I should do that,”' Muth said. “It’s very simple. Just carry a trash bag when you walk.”