Discarded syringes, result of heroin crisis, turning up everywhere
Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass, get washed into rivers and onto beaches, and lie scattered about in baseball dugouts and on sidewalks and streets. There are reports of children finding them and getting poked.
- This Wednesday, June 7, 2017 photo shows discarded used hypodermic needles without protective sheaths at an encampment where opioid addicts shoot up along the Merrimack River in Lowell, Mass. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass, get washed into rivers and onto beaches, and lie scattered about in baseball dugouts and on sidewalks and streets. There are reports of children finding them and getting poked. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- This Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo shows a discarded hypodermic needle retrieved from a boom filled with waste collected on the Merrimack River in Chelmsford, Mass. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. In March alone, San Francisco collected more than 13,000 syringes, compared with only about 2,900 the same month in 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo, activist Rocky Morrison, of the “Clean River Project” uses a rake to reach for a discarded hypodermic needle while examining a boom filled with waste collected from a recovery boat on the Merrimack River in Chelmsford, Mass. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. In March alone, San Francisco collected more than 13,000 syringes, compared with only about 2,900 the same month in 2016. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo, activist Rocky Morrison, of the “Clean River Project”, holds up a fish bowl filled with hypodermic needles, that were recovered during 2016, on the Merrimack River next to their facility in Methuen, Mass. Morrison leads a cleanup effort along the Merrimack River, which winds through the old milling city of Lowell, and has recovered hundreds of needles in abandoned homeless camps that dot the banks, as well as in piles of debris that collect in floating booms he recently started setting. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo activist Rocky Morrison, left, of the “Clean River Project” examines a boom filled with waste collected from a recovery boat on the Merrimack River in Chelmsford, Mass. Morrison leads a cleanup effort along the Merrimack River, which winds through the old milling city of Lowell, and has recovered hundreds of needles in abandoned homeless camps that dot the banks, as well as in piles of debris that collect in floating booms he recently started setting. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- This Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo shows hypodermic needles that were recovered from the Merrimack River in 2016, at the Clean River Facility facility in Methuen, Mass. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass, get washed into rivers and onto beaches, and lie scattered about in baseball dugouts and on sidewalks and streets. There are reports of children finding them and getting poked. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo, Kevin Garcia fishes along the banks of the Merrimack River as a “Clean River Project” recovery boat is offloaded in Chelmsford, Mass. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass, get washed into rivers and onto beaches, and lie scattered about in baseball dugouts and on sidewalks and streets. There are reports of children finding them and getting poked. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday, June 7, 2017 photo, activist Rocky Morrison, left, and volunteer Dalton Abbott, of the “Clean River Project” examine a boom filled with waste collected from a recovery boat on the Merrimack River in Chelmsford, Mass. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass, get washed into rivers and onto beaches, and lie scattered about in baseball dugouts and on sidewalks and streets. There are reports of children finding them and getting poked. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
- In this Wednesday June 7, 2017 photo, activist Rocky Morrison walks through an encampment where opioid addicts shoot up along the Merrimack River in Lowell, Mass. Morrison leads a cleanup effort along the Merrimack River, which winds through the old milling city of Lowell, and has recovered hundreds of needles in abandoned homeless camps that dot the banks, as well as in piles of debris that collect in floating booms he recently started setting. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)