What Happens with Litter

Today I saw something abnormal as I was walking home. I was quietly enjoying the damp, grey, rainy day and there was a lady walking some distance in front of me. She was white, had waist length blonde hair high in a ponytail that was greying at the roots, all I remember of her clothes was that it was a blue jacket. As she was walking along she bent down in a sweep and picked up a discarded sandwich cardboard wrapping and then a Coke Cola bottle emptying it contents into the drain in the same sweep. The wrapping and bottle were left in some roots at the bottom of a tree, something which annoys me regularly on my way home. Walking further still she then straightens up some garage bags lower down the road near a lamppost. She did it with the ease of someone walking through their living room picking up dirty clothes. She didn’t seem to be a mad or deluded person wondering the street without something better to do, her movement seemed normal.

Intrigued by her actions and my reaction to what was done I walked up to her as she deposited the wrapping and bottle into the bin nearby. Cocking my head to one side I said ‘Why did you do that?’ She looked surprised at my bold question, smiled from her mouth to her blue eyes showing her laughing lines, and said ‘I am a cleaner’. What she said after I believed instantly because I felt it in my heart, it is what I feel every time I see garbage on the road especially close to where I maybe living at the point in time. Or the anger I feel when I see someone lazily drop paper or wrappings when a bin is clearly in site. ‘I am a cleaner and it bothers me when I see litter so I do something about’ – a clear answer one as simple as you have a problem you do something to solve it instead of just grumbling. She had the same sense of wanting the area in which she lived to be clean and by extension beautiful. ‘I do it when I am waiting on the bus or not in a hurry, if I see garbage and a bin is in view’. ‘I get various reactions’ she goes on a friendly voice, ‘Older ladies watch me with distaste’ I stopped her ‘It’s admirable’ I said. She smiled again ‘Someone riding by on a bike said that once to me, he was black too like you, a black guy he said it was admirable. Hum says something’ she said looking off as though remembering, even seeing the moment. I was a little uncomfortable with this interjection of race as I am with any unknown person, as I have become wary. I am never sure what they mean or are referring to. I am never sure if to feel offended, if I have missed something in my innocence of being new to a different culture. But this is going off point.

Her reaction seems like the logical thing someone would do if something really annoyed them. This leads me to wonder ‘How annoyed am I at the garbage I see in the street?’ ‘What am I willing to do about it?’ ‘And why she feels so empowered doing this logical response and I would feel taken advantage of?’ As I walked on praising her good deeds with good thoughts, doubts and excuses quickly came to my mind. I think ‘Oh it is totally insanitary’, I think this comes from the constant mantra of ‘Don’t touch, you don’t know where it’s been’ we all hear as children. I see it on the tube; someone sneezes and then holds on to the rail. But won’t the easiest thing be not to throw litter around keep it in your bag because you know where it has been. Another excuse I hear is ‘But you’d be making someone lose a job.’ But honestly I think this is a lazy cop out, firstly the person has not even made an attempt to make a proper excuse and secondly it shows a little into their mindset ‘why should it be someone else’s job to pick up after you?’ It’s the same as saying I should kill someone so police officers have a job.

It is amazing the little things one can do to change life around you, to change your area. And why would you not want to. Your community is an extension of your home. I am not saying we should all go around picking up others litter, but let’s get at the source and not throw it there in the first place, giving the responsibility to someone else to make it better. It is so simple throw your litter in the bin or, keep it in your bag until you see one. In the meantime little heroes like my friend will have to keep her unpaid job and try to make it into something positive.



Some Facts about litter


 Litter is expensive – nationally it costs around £370 million a year to remove litter from our streets, waterways and open spaces and a further £5 million to remove shopping trolleys dumped in rivers and ponds.”


 The most commonly-found litter is cigarette ends, followed by sweet and food wrappers.


 Litter endangers wildlife Exmaples include Yoghurt cartons that trap hedgehogs, plastic loops that catch and kill diving birds in waterways and the sea and floating plastic bags that appear as food to marine life but kill if swallowed by them.


 An estimated 122 tons of cigarette butts and cigarette-related litter is dropped every day across the UK.

 Littering" is a criminal offence. You can be fined up to £2,500, though not jailed. The average fine is around £90, plus court costs. Cases are tried in magistrates' courts.

 If every smoker dropped one cigarette end a week in the UK, we would be knee deep in 624 million dog ends within a year

 This fast food litter helped swell the rat population in Britain to 60 million in 2002

 Litter takes a long time to degrade here is a short list:

Plastic bottles – indefinitely
Aluminium cans 80–100 years
Tin cans 50 years
Glass indefinitely
Plastic bags 10–20 years
Cigarette butts up to 2 years
Orange peel/banana skins up to 2 years

References


http://www.fusionweb.co.uk/tidycheltenham/pages/fact.html

© 2010 Perth & Kinross Council http://www.pkc.gov.uk/Planning+and+the+environment/Waste+and+recycling/Litter+and+flytipping/Litter/Litter.htm