Let’s Be More Considerate

Next time you're outside, observe your radius and count how many pieces of trash you find. Did you put any of it there? Or when you go to the supermarket, what do you do with your cart when you're finished? And when you venture into the woods, or spend a few nights under the stars, what do you leave behind? I want you to think about whether or not you place value on these seemingly little things.

I know we've all seen it...The car in front of us rolls down their window and dumps their fast food bags directly onto the road. There are humans in those cars! So who are these litterers? What goes through their heads?

It is easier to believe that the people who litter are mindless rather than purposefully inconsiderate. We have waste management services in place, for every residency and establishment, that make disposal widely convenient, as if the trash just magically disappears! These services are incredibly flawed, of course, but my point here is, we pay for these amenities in order to help keep our world clean. Perhaps this is a privilege that ungrateful westerners take for granted. Maybe some of us would prefer to live in filthy conditions! But our society, thankfully, figured this one tactic out a long time ago, and individuals who choose to pollute would only have to implement simple alterations to their habits to stop this contribution.

Millions of us enjoy trekking through lush parks, or kayaking down serene rivers as ways of immersing in the natural world. When you're out there, how often do you rejoice in coming upon someone else's waste? Basically anywhere that human do things, I guarantee you will find some form of garbage on the ground. It is usually beverage containers, wrappers from junk food, grocery bags, cigarette butts, and now there is a plethora of masks and electronic vaping devices accumulating on Earth's surfaces. Drive down any road, and you will see medians and ditches filled with man-made debris. We even have “Adopt a Highway” systems where local organizations participate, either with employees or volunteers, by walking down the road and picking up as much trash as they can fill their bags with in a couple hours. This appears to be a nice gesture, but it astonishes me to ponder how necessary it is. Just imagine if no one collected trash from the ground! This is just a single example of humans making poor decisions that negatively affect their own environments, yet some of us continue to choose this behavior.

We specifically have trash cans of varying sizes dispersed all over the place, so you are always invited to pick up after yourself. It is more despicable to litter, but then it becomes a waste of other people's energy when you store your garbage somewhere not intended for it. For example, I hear tales of, and have even witnessed in many campgrounds, campers leaving their garbage in the fire ring rather than disposing of it in the given dumpsters. These large bins are typically placed near the entrance/exit, or somewhere else convenient inside the parks, so again this is either careless or malicious. Take your trash with you when you leave, otherwise you become a trashy person! The fire pits are for fire, not bottles and wrappers. I don't understand how this isn't common sense! Most workers' job objectives aren't to pick up after other humans, yet so many workers are forced to because too many people are inconsiderate. This takes them away from their actual duties, and has a ripple effect that may cause them stress (no one loves dealing with trash, especially someone else's!), and reduces productivity.

And another complaint about human indecency is: if you are able to move your legs through the entire grocery store, you are more than capable of returning your cart to the receptacles in the parking lot, or even all the way back into the store. The epitome of human laziness is leaving your cart in the parking lot. I often see carts left on the sidewalk next to the doors of the building, so what is a few more steps!? Stores have provided ample accommodations for cart placement, yet some people choose to create inconveniences for the rest of us. Leaving your cart to roll around the parking lot, potentially hitting vehicles, or blocking spaces, just because you don't want to waste a few more seconds of your precious time, is pathetic. It is simply thinking you're taking the “easy way out” by making your problems become someone else's, which is why I view this as akin to littering.

This does not progress us forward, but keeps us held back by literally avoiding our own responsibility, and therefore someone else's energy must be emitted instead of their own. I hate to complain, but it so obviously doesn't have to be this way! My goal in pointing this out is to create awareness on how much better all our lives could be if we each just took a little more responsibility.

Perhaps some people might claim that their individual “footprint” means nothing in comparison to the large scale. Corporations directly pollute our land, atmosphere, and waterways with aerosol and chemical waste materials. A lot of trash is shipped across the oceans for other countries to deal with, and a grotesque amount of that gets lost at sea. Although these are major problems we need to tackle, the idea that, “Well they do it worse!” only relinquishes your personal accountability, and perpetuates weakness by thinking that anyone else should be taking care of you. The decisions of your life do impact those around you, no matter how small you think they are.

I'm not saying that there could never be any plausible excuse for these actions, and I understand that mishaps do occur. However, if you do these types of things regularly, habitually, without any thought or care, then you are part of the problem. These behaviors shape your character, and where do your values lie? When you litter, etc., you are teaching your children, or those who witness you, that this planet and our common areas are not worthy of care and respect. And this mindset, these actions, are an important part of what I am working to correct in our society.

The little things accumulate, and it is all connected!