Happy Earth Day! Grrr!
Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints. PLEASE!
My adopted city of London has lots of lovely trails that run along the Thames and Medway, the two rivers that flow through the city. One of my favourites takes me right to the river’s edge where, in dry seasons, I can stand on the exposed rocks of what is normally the river bed.
One evening last spring, while on my favourite walk, I heard a group of rowdy people whooping it up on an alternate path to the river. They were hidden by trees, out of sight but not out of earshot. I reached a spot near the trailhead and discovered garbage left on the gravel, in the grassy verges, in a tree. None of it was there when I started my walk and I could well guess who left it.
Is Mommy coming later to clean this up?
I am often dismayed by the thoughtlessness of my fellow humans but this took my breath away. The garbage didn’t suddenly blow there. It was not dropped absentmindedly. It was placed deliberately—in a tree. It takes a special kind of contempt for nature to do that.
A few months later I happened upon the garbage container seen in the photo below. It was at a gas station that also contained a Tim Hortons. Everything visible in the photo was recyclable or compostable, yet just steps away was a bin for paper, recyclables, and waste. Of course, there’s no guarantee that what goes in the recycling bin is actually recycled but it seems to me that some people aren’t even trying. Why, oh why? Is it sheer laziness?
Everything shown here is either recyclable or compostable.
So near and yet so far…
The above examples might seem petty in the great scheme of things but they are repeated many millions of times over every day. True change starts with the individual, all 8.1 billion of us as of the date of this post.
Clean up your own mess. It’s what grown-ups do. Mommy isn’t coming later to do it for you.
If you broke it, fix it.
If you spilled it, wipe it up.
If you dropped it, pick it up.
If you can’t find a receptacle, take your garbage home.
Care. When it looks like nobody cares, nobody cares.
We are a filthy species and we quite literally foul our own nests. From the deepest ocean to the highest mountain, from the hottest desert to the coldest continent, we abandon our crap.
Yes, this is a rant. There is little I can add that hasn’t already been said by wiser and better writers. Happy Earth Day! Grrr.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbage-patch/
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/trash-and-overcrowding-top-world/