CEDAR RAPIDS — Retirement wasn’t what Dee Anderson imagined.

Dee Anderson picks up trash in a wooded area along 34th Street SE on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010, in Cedar Rapids. Anderson started walking last year after retiring from teaching, and picks up trash along her route. (Liz Martin/SourceMedia Group News)

An avid walker, Anderson, 56, became dismayed with all the trash she saw on her walks in southeast Cedar Rapids.

“It took the joy and beauty out of the reasons I walk out here,” says Anderson, who retired as an elementary school art teacher in 2009.

After wondering why no one was taking care of the problem, Anderson decided to be part of the solution.

Picking up trash has become part of her daily routine on East Post Road, Cottage Grove Avenue and other streets in her neighborhood.

“It started because I just got sick of looking at everything,” she says. “I kept thinking, somebody needs to pick this stuff up and nobody did.”

Items gathered from the roadside by Dee Anderson include a cell phone, car parts, trophy tops and stuffed animals. Photographed at her house on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010, in Cedar Rapids. (Liz Martin/SourceMedia Group News)

In the past year or so, she has found discarded cell phones, clothing, condoms — more in the packaging than out — sunglasses, golf balls, soda cans and alcohol bottles, both empty and not.

In the most unusual category, she found a 10-pound bag of chicken hindquarters and the most dangerous: a meth lab.

The items, she notes, would make for an interesting sociological study.

Anderson speculates that some drivers don’t want to be caught with alcohol and pitch the bottles from the vehicle.

She’s at a loss to explain why people toss her least favorite items: fast food bags and plastic water bottles.

“They seem to think ‘nature is my trash can,’” she says. “Why can’t they just keep it in their car a little longer and pitch it in the right place?”

Over time, she has devised a system to cope with the copious amounts of garbage she finds.

Donning her walking shoes and armed with three bags – one for recyclables, one for trash and one for returnable bottles and cans — it doesn’t take long for Anderson to spot the first piece of litter as she steps onto Cottage Grove Avenue.

“There’s never a day I come home empty-handed,” she says.

Anderson is forced to ignore the ubiquitous cigarette butts that litter the roadside.

“There’s not enough time to pick them up,” she says.

Neighbors allow her to use their garbage cans and recycling bins when they are vacationing.

She and her husband, Neil, always fill their own containers.

Her husband walks with her in the mornings, but not when she is picking up trash.

“It’s kind of my time,” she says. “A lot of times I sing — and I sing badly — or I talk to myself or I pray. It’s my strange retirement occupation. I’m the trash lady.”

Others have started to notice.

One man stopped during his drive to give Anderson a bright, insulated jacket with reflective tape, to keep her safe and warm, he told her.

Her friend, Linda Langston, a Linn County supervisor, mentioned Anderson’s efforts at a Board of Health meeting.

And then there are the waves and shouts of encouragement.

“One woman rolled down her window and said ‘bless you,’” she says. “I do feel blessed. I can’t fix the world, but I can take care of my little area.”

Anderson hopes people won’t think they have an excuse to litter because she is picking up after them. In fact, she was hesitant to have her efforts publicized out of concern that the problem would worsen.

Her goal is for people to realize how their actions impact others.

“Just don’t litter,” she says.