- April 20, 2024
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Brian Hanson strolls along West Granada Boulevard six days a week picking up trash and cigarette butts.
Brian Hanson wants us all to remember one thing: leave it cleaner than you found it.
Six days a week Hanson, a retired lawyer, walks up and down West Granada Boulevard making sure he stays true to that mission. Monday through Friday he picks up trash from the Granada Bridge down to the Sunoco Station on the corner of South Yonge Street. He recently started making the same route every Saturday to sweep up cigarette butts.
“It’s such a big job,” Hanson, an Ormond Beach resident for 58 years, said. “When I first did it, it was an incredibly big job. I was dying from heat exhaustion. There’s a whole lot less now since I’ve been doing it for a few months. This is just maintenance.”
After asking the city multiple times to clean up the cigarettes, Hanson just decided to take matters into his own hands. Hanson said he disposed of over 3,000 cigarette butts the first time he cleaned up the half mile stretch.
“We’ve gotta keep this place clean,” Hanson said. “There’s an expression. Leave it cleaner than you found it. I tried to get the city’s help but I finally decided to just do it myself.”
In order to pick up the 500 to 1,000 cigarettes he finds weekly on the sidewalk, Hanson said he requires full concentration.
“You get better at this the more you do it,” Hanson said. “I have a couple friends that say, ‘hey I saw you out there on Granada but you weren’t looking up at all.’”
Hanson doesn’t mind dedicating his time to keeping Ormond Beach clean, but he also wouldn’t mind a little help.
“If we could get somebody to do the other side of Granada,” Hanson said, “because there is only so much one person can do.”
