A mission to rid the state of nips and other discarded trash ends in tragedy
Even well into his seventies, Jack Coughlin slogged as many as 10 miles a day with his trusty bucket and trash nabber, filling large bags of litter as he patrolled side streets and main roads, rivers and woods, often into the night.
In Agawam, a small city across the Connecticut River from Springfield, the grizzled, affable man is known by just about everyone, an environmental activist who for decades has fought to create parks and ballfields, curb pollution in rivers and ponds, and wage a Sisyphean campaign against trash.
“We need to protect our ability to live on this Earth,” he told state lawmakers last year as he beseeched them to curb the endless stream of refuse, especially nips, the miniature liquor bottles that seemed to be discarded everywhere.
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Last month, after watching President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Coughlin bundled up and headed out with his 5-gallon bucket and Nifty Nabber on his daily rounds. As the sun began to set, the 77-year-old great-grandfather was walking along Mill Street, a busy two-lane road that runs through the center of the city.
He saw someone he knew and took the opportunity to unload the litter he had collected. But as he crossed the street, he was struck by a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Five surgeries later, Coughlin remains at the hospital, paralyzed from the neck down and unable to speak, beyond mouthing words. If he survives, his paralysis is likely to be permanent, his family said.
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The crash has left relatives and neighbors reeling, struggling to understand how someone so selfless could suffer such misfortune and how to properly honor a man so dedicated to his cause.
“I can’t express enough how much he means to our community,” said Agawam Mayor Bill Sapelli, who had given Coughlin his cellphone number and spoke to him frequently, often arranging for city workers to pick up the industrial-sized trash bags he left for them along roads and in parks.
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The night before Coughlin was hit, Sapelli was driving to a meeting when he saw Coughlin, whose daily miles kept him remarkably fit for his age, pushing several abandoned shopping carts up a hill in the dark. He was returning them to a local supermarket.
The mayor worried about Coughlin, as did his children. But there was no persuading him to cut back or turn in after dark. He kept at it until he was done.
“He’s a doer, not a talker,” said Sapelli, who recently drafted a proclamation to rename Earth Day in Agawam “Jack Coughlin Appreciation Day.” “He singlehandedly convinced the community that it was important to take care of the environment.”
When Coughlin spoke fervently at last year’s State House hearing on expanding the state’s bottle deposit law to reduce litter — his cri de coeur for years — he appeared to touch lawmakers, who allowed him to hold forth well after his allotted time.
“This is outrageous,” he said about their failure to act. “We can’t allow this.”
Now, state lawmakers are planning to file a new bottle bill in his name, hoping to overcome longstanding opposition from the bottling industry. The bill would require customers to pay at least a nickel deposit on nips and other noncarbonated beverages, which proponents say would sharply reduce the litter Coughlin spent decades collecting.
“The world needs more Jack Coughlins,” said state Senator John Velis, a Westfield Democrat who came to know Coughlin well and plans to cosponsor the legislation.
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Environmental advocates have long argued that requiring deposits on bottled water and sports drinks — the vast majority of beverages sold today — would reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills and save cities and towns an estimated $45 million a year in recycling costs.
“How can you not support this?” Velis asked. “It’s the right thing to do, and then to have tragedy strike, while doing the exact thing he was calling on us to change — making this planet a better place to live — how can that not have an impact on you?”
Coughlin began picking up litter when he was a teenager growing up in Springfield, coaxed by his dad to earn an allowance. Most of the trash used to be beer cans and soda bottles, but that changed in the early 1980s when the state made them redeemable for a nickel, he told lawmakers last year.
“Whoever came up with putting a deposit on beer cans and bottles deserves a statue, because there’s been a decline of at least 90 percent,” he said at the hearing.
Coughlin’s zeal to reduce litter continued through the years he worked in customer support for Verizon. During his lunch hour, he turned the company’s parking lot into a garden, which became so extravagant it started to attract tourists.
“He was always driven to make things better,” said Sean Coughlin, one of his two children. “He was simply a machine that couldn’t be stopped.”
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While coaching his son’s soccer team, Coughlin began pressing Springfield to turn a large piece of vacant land into a soccer field. After years of lobbying, the city finally agreed. No matter where his team played, Coughlin made sure the fields were left pristine. “I want this field spotless,” he would tell his players, lining them up to scan the grass as if looking for loose screws on the deck of an aircraft carrier, his son said.
An avid fisherman, Coughlin spent more than a decade urging public officials to renovate a dilapidated boat launch on the Connecticut River in Chicopee, a project that cost nearly $1 million and was finally completed in December. Even before the crash, local officials were considering naming it in his honor.
“He’s the most dedicated and passionate person I’ve ever met,” said Sheryl Becker, a board member of the Westfield River Watershed Association who spent years cleaning the Connecticut River with Coughlin. “He didn’t let age interfere. He was out there every day, inspiring so many people.”
Becker and others are now planning regular community cleanups in Coughlin’s absence. “No one will be able to fill his shoes,” she said. “But if we have a group that goes out on a weekly basis, it would make a difference.”
Coughlin has lived on a modest pension and never took a dime for his advocacy work, his son said. He has few possessions, never replacing his 2001 Chevy S-10 Blazer after it broke down nearly a decade ago. “There was no monetary impulse at all,” his son said, recalling how he once turned down a job offer from the city’s Department of Public Works after he retired.
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Coughlin spoke to his son every day before heading out on his rounds. His son urged him to be careful, especially along the busier roads, begging him to come home before dark. But his dad was set in his ways.
“I would get so upset,” his son said. “I would just say, ‘You just can’t keep doing this,’ and he would say, ‘I just got to get this done.’”
Coughlin typically wore a reflective vest on his rounds, but not on the day of the crash. It was cold, and it would have been uncomfortable over a heavy jacket, his son said. It’s unclear whether the driver was speeding, but glare from the sunset could have contributed to the crash, police said.
The driver, who remained at the scene, has not been charged. Police say the investigation is ongoing.
Coughlin sustained multiple fractures in his back, neck, and face, as well as five broken ribs. He now requires a ventilator to breathe and a feeding tube to eat.
His family hasn’t been able to visit Coughlin because of coronavirus restrictions, except once to discuss options for palliative care. They’ve seen him by video, with Coughlin blinking and mouthing words to communicate.
On Thursday, in a video call with The Boston Globe and his children, Coughlin was lucid but in significant pain, his lips moving without making a sound. Still heavily bruised and connected to life support machines, he said he was grateful that lawmakers planned to honor his lifelong mission by pressing ahead with legislation to reduce litter.
His son began to cry as his father, who has no memory of being hit, struggled to express himself. Asked if he had any message he wanted to share, he called on neighbors and friends to carry on with his cause of cleaning their community and fighting for an expanded bottle law.
“We all have to protect our environment,” he said. “We have no other choice. It’s not about me. It’s about the future.”
Coughlin’s family set up this GoFundMe page to raise money to help with medical expenses.
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