Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and that will led environmentalist Taylor Mali to develop the Snatchelator, a 28-foot telescoping paint roller modified with some gnarly looking bent metal braces that’s proven very successful at removing plastic bags from trees in his Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn. Some more info while I wonder if it also works on kites so the neighborhood kids will finally forgive me and let me start hanging out again:

The whole thing looks like a spear with an awkward sprangle of metal pieces at the end, but if it comes anywhere near a plastic bag and I begin to twist it in one direction or another, the bag gets entwined around the metal and I can pull it from the branch with a little force. Sometimes I accidentally bring a few twigs and small branches down on top of me, but I always believe that the trees will gladly pay that price to be rid of the bag that might otherwise have stayed for years. …And recently I added a link to Google form where anyone in my neighborhood can log a bag in a tree that they would like removed!

Obviously, Captain Planet applauds your efforts and told me he’d like to make you an honorary Planeteer. “Why wouldn’t he just tell me himself?” We’ve grown very close in recent years, and he prefers I do the talking. “Do you even know him?” Are my hands blue? “Uhhh…what?” Nothing — nothing.