Our Roadside Ditch
Earth Day 2021
Yesterday was Earth Day and as I have been doing for 51 years, I took part by doing a clean up effort. Norma and I spent an hour or so going along our 800-foot road front, which in Nova Scotia means a rather deep ditch, and cleaning the trash up by collecting it and putting it in a large commercial size green bag.
The trash we found says something about the human mind, I think. My rough estimate is that 90% of the items now in the bag are fast food restaurant refuse – mainly beverage cups and food wrappers. I have said before that we may be in the prime zone for “droppage” as we live about a 20 minute drive from the center of Yarmouth – the nearest place such things are sold, but that shouldn’t matter.
The rest of the garbage was smoking related (packages and foils) and a small amount were other beverage containers – a couple of beer cans and some pop (or soda to my American readers) cans and bottles.
I posted about this on Facebook yesterday with a photo of the bag (the image today is the ditch as we were cleaning it), and unanimously my Facebook friends said that the behaviour that caused this trash was unthinkable. That shows that I have nice friends, but it also gives rise to the thought that those who eat a lot of fast food in their car, smoke and drink have a certain mentality that leads to such littering. In my family, we always have a container in the car to receive waste, and we empty it at home.
My half a century plus of efforts make me proud and happy that I can do my part for the planet, but it also frustrates me enormously that some of us have to go around picking up after other thoughtless people.
So unnecessary.
