Actually, it was the day after Earth Day, so it was a tad belated, but better late then never as they say. Anyway, what I did for Earth Day yesterday was going along the road where I currently reside and helping to pick up the garbage that was lying in the ditches - most of it stuff tossed there out of windows by people driving by.
Right now, I’m living out in the countryside, and on a gravel road. On each side of those roads, the ditches are dug very deep to allow a lot of water to flow into them during runoff from farmer’s fields. Unfortunately, many people think they’re also to be used for a mini-landfill site or a garbage dump. You would not believe all the plastic bottles and cans my mom and I picked out of those ditches - stuff that could easily have been put into a recycling box for pickup, if people weren’t so lazy. There was other stuff too - such as pizza boxes and plastic bags, but it was the number of plastic bottles that stuck in my mind.
Unfortunately, some people who live out in the countryside think the empty space is there for throwing away things. We did a small part, we hope, in helping to clean up the environment around here (and it looks a lot better too).
Scott - don’t know where you’re located, but in our rural community we have a clean-up day where we all take a bit of road and pick up the trash. Last year my wife and I did about a kilometer, and I completely filled the back of my pickup with tires, bottles, cans, paper (Tim Horton’s cups about 50% of that), and pretty much anything else you can imagine.
As this is primarily cottage country, I can only assume it’s mostly the city folks on their way to the cottage or back home that feel the need to trash our back yards.
Too bad really.