What brought upon this entry? I mean besides the known fact that I fuckin HATE litter and the people that litter (as evidence of my other 2 "trash" related blog posts), was this National Geographic article. The picture that saddened my heart and boiled my blood was a picture of a dead fish stuck in the thumb of a rubber glove. This lead to my digging up of more pictures, articles, and statistics.
Littering obviously is a choice. I'm not talking about the ones that dispose of their trash in the trash cans and mother nature decides to send some fricken wind storm our way and blows our trash right out of the trash bins. I'm talking about the ones that blatantly say "Fuck this planet" and decide to toss their trash on the ground, or shove it in a bush thinking that is any better.
With covid numbers going down in the US and less people wearing PPE, that will eliminate the masks and gloves we see around our communities. It will give the litter bugs a couple less things to just toss on the ground. That's a small plus I guess. Doesn't take away from the fact that the trash has already reached our oceans. Beach and ocean clean up crews collecting hundreds, if not thousands of masks and gloves at a time, amongst other trash as well. These clean up crews are mostly made up of volunteers that care about the environment and this planet. They are non-profit organizations funded by donations made by others that give a crap and who are not able to be there in person to help out. The ones that choose to donate do make a huge difference. They provide the funding for the amazing contraptions that sail the oceans and rivers skimming the pollution. There are several organizations you can find if you just google it.
During the height of the pandemic, well when the lockdown was lifted, taking a walk around town I did see many masks and gloves, and of course regular trash. The difference, I did not pick these up. I had nothing to pick these up with and the paranoia of thinking what could possibly be lurking on these items made my decision to walk past it for me. In a normal time I wouldn't think twice if I saw a trash can near, I'd just pick it up with no thought given. The times we live in now made it very difficult for me as well as I'm sure many others. I've been better lately with picking some things up every once in a while. Equipped with my trusty hand sanitizer in my pocket and 2 shots of Pfizer vaccine running through my body. But it's still a work in progress. I'm thinking of investing in one of those grabber pincher thingys, I don't know what they are officially called but "grabber/pincher thingys" sounds legit to me.
If you wanna read my other previous "trash" ramblings here's the links for those... enjoy my brain:
I hate litter #2
Look, I'll be honest, I've thrown many cigarette butts out the car window in my day I won't lie. Or thrown cigarette butts over the wall into an empty lot at home, but realized the very hypocritical error of my ways, took a bag and picked up all my butts and other people's as well (some were NOT my brand). Or at my old job would sit by a planter, smoked and put my cigarette butts in the planter, once again, picked up all my butts filling an empty screw-top Monster drink can to the brim. The point to those stories was simply saying, I messed up and changed. You choose to do better from here on out does matter. It does make a difference... one person at a time, one piece of liter at a time.
 |
