Well, it all rest on us.
When people hear about pollution, they often picture oil spills, nuclear discharges, fogs, or even smoke fumes, but little is said about the habitual tossing of litter—our bottles, wrappers, nylon bags—to the mother earth.
Littering our environment has become so highly ignored that we often do it on autopilot. We toss all of the plastics, nylons, cans that we forget these small acts go a long way in ruining our environment. When we toss these refuse to the earth, we fill the earth with indecomposable inorganic matter which in the end causes a shift of balance in our ecosystem. Coupled with the “big” pollution guys, we are on the route to making earth an uninhabitable zone.
Many organisations have gone on several campaigns to recycle and pack all of the dirt humans have accumulated. And the funny thing is, though they are handling the problem, they are doing so the wrong way. Yes, this will get rid of the dirt, but if we keep tossing these wrappers and bottles, isn’t it more or less a fool’s errand? Throwing out wrappers to the ground is a bad habit and is affecting our earth. So, isn’t killing the habit the best way around it?
Being an avid culprit (in the past)—gum into the mouth, wrapper to the floor—I really can’t deny what an ease it is and how annoying looking for the nearest basket could be. Really, this keeping of your wrapper till you see a dustbin could be annoying, so why not just toss it to the floor? And if there is a bin, well, what better time to test my basketball skills than then… It was like this till a friend told me, “If everyone did what I did — I mean toss wrappers to the floor — would I like the place I am standing right now?” And really, I thought about it, would I? Not only does littering affect the earth, it gives it a weird adornment as well. Since then, I stood by the mantra, “if everyone did it, how would you like it?”
Maybe the change really does start with us, be the change we want to see in the world, right? Well, I think I am starting to get Gandhi a little. Yes, it can be so comfortable to just toss your coke bottle to the grass rather than the bin a mile away or to just throw your cheese ball nylon to the tiles of the class, you should remember though, if everyone did it would you be able to sit there?
The earth is a beautiful place, only we are quick to ruin it. Nylons and bottles are everywhere and it is messing with our environment. Most people would argue that’s what the cleaners are there for, that’s what the environmental people are for. What if we just didn’t throw dirt around and the environmental people became more concerned on how to improve the earth rather than preventing it from being ruined. What if we handled the refuse tasks and cleaners switch up to help with planting trees and trimming them.
I don’t know if you’d ever sit to picture the world you want to see, but a world I want to see is one that isn’t adorned with wrappers of indomie and fanta cans. The earth I envision — the one we should envision — is one free from refuse, blessed with fresh air, and radiant with its beauty. It really isn’t hard to cultivate the habit. Just always let the mantra play in your head and spread the word. Reminding those around you would have an effect no matter how small it is, and with time we would become more conscious of how we dispose of our refuse. The change indeed starts with us, which thereafter spreads to others. When in need of a bin, find one and use it.
Good piece