By Alysa Leier
Garbage. Trash. Waste. Rubbish. Swill. Call it what you will; when it ends up in someone’s yard, on the beach, in the ocean, in the ditch or anywhere not a designated trash receptacle, it becomes litter—and that becomes a problem.
It’s no secret that food waste is an issue. Some statistics state that up to 40% of food becomes waste! How fortunate are we as a general population that we live in such excess that we can throw away so much food? But that’s only part of what I’m talking about. I’m also talking about food wrappers, plastic bags, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, boxes and a myriad of other things I’ve collected from my yard & ditch, most of which housed some sort of food or drink. And that’s not including the unmentionable things I’ve also collected. Don’t get me wrong, it looks nothing like the ditch next to Walmart in Minot after spring thaw (because seriously, that is horrible), but I do collect at least 2 trash bags-full of junk that I find each year.
I recently took my kids to the lake near our house. We packed a cooler with drinks, sandwiches, and snacks, and were ready for an afternoon of fun in the sun. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the beach (which is really not a beach, but a bit of sand with one lonely picnic table), we arrived to dirty diapers under the picnic table (at least they weren’t ON it, I guess), empty food containers, and plastic bags.
Dirty diapers under a picnic table? This literally stinks!
The whole scenario reminded me of a video The Disney Channel has of this little boy who had a trash collecting party for his birthday. He invited all of his friends over and they all got their little trash grabbers and picked up other people’s trash. It was sweet, but I was a little weirded out by it because: isn’t it just sad this sort of party is even a possibility?! Isn’t it still a “thing” to teach your kids to pick up after themselves or for adults to simply pick up their own garbage? My kids learned a lesson that day at the beach. I’m hoping they learned the importance of taking care of your own trash, but I’m guessing they also learned that sometimes you’ll have to clean up after other people.
I get it. I know what it’s like to be so busy and just not take the time to pick up whatever junk falls out of the backseat of your car. Seriously, if you’ve ever seen the backseat of my car after a few days with my kids, you know I know what you’re going through.
Humans, animals and plants all need unpolluted water to survive. And in case you didn’t know, littering is still illegal.