Cynthia Crabtree, front, and Cole Lystila of the Houghton Police Department pick up trash near Marketplace Foods in Houghton. Crabtree had gotten approval to clean up the site after seeing it on her patrol. (Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — On any given day, Cynthia Crabtree’s patrols might bring her into contact with speeders, vandals or loiterers.

Monday afternoon, the Houghton police officer was tackling another item that had popped onto her radar: roadside trash. 

Crabtree and parking enforcement officer Cole Lystila spent an hour Monday picking up garbage on the grassy knoll by Marketplace Foods overlooking M-26. 

She’d seen the area on her rounds, and asked Chief John Donnelly if it would be OK to clean it up. 

“I asked the chief if it would be OK to help clean it up, to keep our area looking nice and keep a uniqueness about it, because it’s unfortunate to see all this garbage,” Crabtree said. 

They began around noon, filling several bags with scraps of plastic, cigarette containers and other debris littering the site.

“It’s the good thing to do, it’s the right thing to do,” Lystila said. “Someone’s got to pick it up. Why not us?”