Inconsiderate trash throwin' kids

Sounds like a good idea to me.... but will it work.. who knows...

 

I my school we once in a while pick up garbage in the schoolyard. It's something we have to do, and I think the teachers want us to learn from that
I sometimes catch my friends in throwing the chocolate wrapping or whatever, I sure tell them what I mean! Maybe some day thay will remember what I've told them...

 

The one thing that I HATE about littering is how it can ruin a good thing for everybody.

Case in Point: Where I live there is a lake on private property. The man who owns it use to let people use it as long as they picked up their trash. My dad would take my brother and I fishing and canoing. It was great fun and whatever trash we made we took out with us. Not all people did so. There was so much trash around the shores of the lake it was dangerous. All the broken glass and beer cans. We even found a refrigorator than someone dumped in the water! We stopped going soon after that. Later we heard that the man that owned it fenced it off because it was so trashed. I felt that it was so unfair to us and to the other people who cleaned up after ourselves that our fun was ruined by the litterbugs

Angel :sunglasse

 

We drink from the river and then we put up our walls

Sorry that made me think of Aerials by System of a Down.

I hate when people throw garbage too, especially plastics.

 

well, I think that this is just a symptom of all your individualized notions of enviornmental protection. Yes litter is unsightly. Yes, recycling is good. But in the scheme of things litter is not a problem. People need to focus their energies on shifting policy before you worry about your little local crusade. Write letters to your reps, hell, go to their office and tell them how you feel about major polution problems. Stop worrying about the small stuff and think about the big picture. Too often people are content with doing their small part, trying to minimize impact on the environment while still supporting rampit consumerism and awful economic and busniess practices.

 

So, insted of picking up our trash we should write letters to the editor?

 

yes, letters to the editor, letters to congress whatever the fuck you can do to further a REAL environmental goal. I have studdied this shit for the last two years and that is really the only change that REALLY makes a diffrence, POLICY change not individual change.

 

I disagree that this makes littering not important. How can we expect people to feel good about the Earth and want to participate in larger programs if it looks so crappy? These things are *both* important. People who look around and see nature in its beauty are going to be more inclined to do things to preserve it (whether it's taking their trash home, or voting for an environmentally-friendly candidate, or walking the next block instead of taking their car, or paying a few pennies more for ecologically grown food instead of mass produced stuff) and people who're looking around and see just one dying tree amidst lots of litter are more likely to think 'fuck that, it's all gone to hell anyhow' and they won't do a thing...

 

I did say that it was important, but what if littering was not aginst the law and everyone did it? Would you not want to change the law and make it illegal? All I'm saying is that people get too caught up in their own actions to ever think about making a real diffrence and start a movement, raise an issue, ect. Bush WANTS individuals to take responsibility for their own environmental standards and he wants to weaken policy. This trend has been hapining since the '80s. Bush wants you to go out and buy a hybrid car and wants you to go out and buy that rubbermaid container to throw trash away and wants you to go out and buy natural, biodegradeable detergent. It would be hard to argue that today's environmentalism is not about consumerism; which is FUCKED up! That means Bush and big busniess win, they get to keep producing and sell expensive "eco-friendly" products on the one hand and keep selling normal shit to the masses. We need to stop this individualized responsibility for the environment and get back to policy changes, the environmentalism of the '60's and '70's.

 

Your points are good, and actually something I hadn't considered before, but I don't agree completely.

If everyone developed the little "minimal" habit of not littering the roads and cities and lakes would be spotless. That's a big deal, regardless of what environmental policies in the world change.

Maybe if environmental cleanliness was "in" our politicians would feel more pressure to enact policy change.

Nurturing a positive attitude about the environment in individuals is very important, and if we don't have that, where will the push for policy change come from? Those 16 year olds dumping their cans in the woods right now will grow up to be adults that throw their trash out the car window going down the highway. They wont be writing letters to their representatives about the issue.

It doesn't hurt for kids to push to keep their social areas clean, or for charities to adopt a highway or little things like that. Don't trivialize the small stuff, because the small stuff adds up.

 

I understand and agree completely, but I still think the small stuff distracts people from the larger issues.