David Flansberg bends down to pick up some trash as he cleans the Highway 167 entrance into the City.

by Dave Warner

If you’ve ever seen someone walking alongside the roads leading into Little Falls, it might be David Flansburg, who has made it his mission to keep the entryways to the City clean.

On Tuesday, May 5th, while picking up the trash along Highway 167 coming into the City, he filled up 4 orange bags, picked up six tires, three tv’s and a toilet among the many McDonalds, Stewart’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Dunkin Donuts wrappers.

Flansburg was born in Little Falls but moved to Middleville when he was five years old, but ended up moving back to Little Falls as an adult after a six-year stint in the Navy.

He said, “I was always a jogger, and I started taking a couple of plastic bags in my pockets, and on the way back, like on the Dolgeville Road, I’d pick up stuff. I did that for about a half-mile stretch. Nobody had done that before.”

Then he started picking up trash on the two-mile stretch of Route 5 through Little Falls. “In 2016 I really got into it.”

He says that right now, It’s just about at the end of his season to pick things up because the grass starts getting too tall for him to wade into areas that are a bit further off the roadway.

He keeps a detailed listing of everything that he has picked up, and has done so for years.

The most common thing that he finds along the road? “Slim Jims, six-packs, water bottles with snuff spit in them, and then cans and bottles,” he said.

He recycles what he can, and washes it out first before taking it down to RD’s.

“I do find wrenches sometimes and screwdrivers, and craftsman stuff, but one time, someone dumped literally like fifty diapers and they just exploded along the roadway. That was the heaviest bag ever,” he stated.

He has also found winning lottery tickets along the road. “My girlfriend laughs because one of them got $15 for me. That one had like symbols on it and they didn’t know that it was five or ten dollars. I’ve found dollar ones too.”

Flansburg says that people stop and talk with him while he’s alongside the road, sometimes offering a ride, and other times just thanking him for what he is doing.

He says that he’s going to keep at it as long as he can.