My husband wrote this post today… he was mountain biking yesterday and saw the worst trail marker ever and has posted his “rant” on two mountain biking forums. Here are his thoughts:
While riding one of my favorite trails in the great state of New Jersey yesterday, I noticed that one of my regular trails had been given some new Trailmarkers.
The Markers were plates stapled to trees. As I got closer to one of them I noticed that not only were they plates – but they were styrofoam plates.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I took one down off the tree and placed it in my pack. I really hope that the person/people responsible for putting these up go back and take down every single one of them.
Remember Earth Day – it was less than a month ago and some people have already forgotten about it. I’m far from a vegetarian earth loving hippy, but come on – use a little common sense and don’t use styrofoam plates in the middle of a State Park..
This is a cross post from NJ Forum – Where I am stil waiting for someone to take responsibility.
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=414086
Thanks for letting me rant..
Green4u's Weblog 
Hi,
So this might be ignorant of me, but what is the matter with a styrofoam plate for a trailmarker? And what did you do with the plate after you took it? Throw it in the garbage to occupy space in a landfill? At least the trailmarker person was using the garbage.
Matt-
The plate was stapled to a tree rather than being a marker that was placed in the ground not really the best way to take care of your local forest right? Styrofoam is also pretty much the worst chemical and worst product ever, it never breaks down and leechs its horrible chemicals into the food that was on it (and into your bloodstream after you eat the food) and the rain water that will pass over it through out the years. I will do more research and do a post on the horrors of styrofoam.
I think he took the plate to give a park ranger.
-Green4u
Ironically I saw the post on mtbr.com and went briefly looking for the ills associated with Styrofoam and found this blog. You guys cover a lot of great stuff here.
Along the lines of cycling, thought you might be interested in our bikes. (www.swissbike.com).
We have noticed through our experience in cycling industry, that while the world needs more people on bikes, it is often difficult for people to make the initial step toward removing them from their cars. Thus we realized the concept of Drive and Cycle commuting.
Most people’s commute to work is farther than they feel comfortable riding a bike. Now they can simply put a SwissBike in the trunk of their car, drive part way to work, park, and pull out their SwissBike for the rest of the ride. And if the day is not nice, or they don’t have the energy, they simply leave the bike safe and dry in the trunk until another day.
Many people are obviously already doing this, but we feel that by promoting this concept, it allows those who are dependent on their cars to remain connected to their cars while strongly moving in the direction of eco friendly commuting. Kind of like a niccotene patch for oil.
It would be interesting to see what you guys have to say on the concept of intermediate methods for getting people green.
Matt,
I put the styrofoam plate in my pack, and carried it out from the middle of a State Park. If I had left it there, I would have been able to see the same plate in the woods 10 years from now. One thing I think I know is that styrofoam doesn’t biodegrade very well.
I will leave it up to my wife to find out the facts.
Now if we could only get every person who uses a State Park to carry out one piece of trash every time..
“Don’t Jersey the Environment.”