As we walk, bike or drive up and down the road, the most abundant thing we see beside people and other drivers is litter or trash. Trash seems to be everywhere: on the sides of the road, in parking lots, flying out of peoples cars, on the school campus and even out of people’s hands onto the ground. It is a growing epidemic going around. People are throwing their trash on the ground and either not caring about where it goes, or hoping that someone else will pick it up and throw it away. But let me tell you, that trash hardly ever makes it to the trash can. The only way it gets to the trash can is by either someone who is paid to clean it up or a person who cares enough to pick up someone else’s trash.
Throwing your trash on the ground can affect the environment not only in that immediate area, but it could end up effecting people or animals several, if not hundreds, of miles away. The wind alone can carry a single piece of trash several miles, directly affecting that local area or environment. That’s just a single piece of trash. Think of all the trash you have ever seen on the side of the road, in the bushes, clogging the sewer drain or just blowing in the wind. That trash could have come from miles away, dropped by some careless person. The rivers and the ocean are also carriers of trash. Yes, the trash you throw on the ground could end up in the ocean. It could be blown into your local river and sent directly into the ocean and wreak havoc on the oceanic wild life. The trash that you throw on the ground here could end up in another county or on an island inhabited by animals.
Trash is a silent destroyer of ecosystems and a killer of wild life. It has destroyed life in the past, it is destroying life now and it will wreak untold havoc to life if it is left unchecked. But it is not enough to simply throw your trash in the trash can or recycling bin, although that is a good start. We must clean up the trash that is already out there and recycle it. We need to clean up the rivers and the highways.
We can start here on the HFCC campus. If you have trash, throw it away or, better yet, recycle it. If you see trash lying around, you could pick it up and throw it away or recycle it. It’s these little things you can do that will make big differences in the future.