Garbage, Garbage Everywhere

When the snow melts, spirits rise.  We can’t wait to see the grass turn green and the wildflowers bloom in the ditches.  But before we can see those beautiful sights, we have to endure an ugly one:  garbage everywhere.

How does it get there? I wonder.  Are there giant crows (like in Fort McMurray) who know how to lift the lids of metal trash-bins?  I haven’t seen any here.  Maybe the wind blows it in from neighbouring communities.  Maybe a garbage truck threw up.

It can’t possibly be the obvious, can it?  Are people really throwing coffee cups, fast food containers, and diapers out their windows as they drive along?  I refuse to believe it.  I can understand the occasional apple core tossed out, but paper garbage?

Oh, I get it.  The litterers are being kind.  They want to give town workers, inmate work parties, and youth groups something to do every spring.

I also wonder about the overflowing trash bins I see on garbage day.  Bins so full the lids won’t close.  Our family of seven makes less than two bags of garbage and one bag of recycling most weeks.  What’s going on at these other houses?  How do they make so much garbage?  Did I miss a memo or something?

Now and then I open my van door and a receipt blows away or a water bottle rolls out.  But I quickly grab it or have one of my children go after it.  “We don’t litter,” I say.  “We want to keep our world clean.”

You’d think, with all the talk about saving the environment and desiring to reduce our ecological footprints, we could start with something as simple as composting, recycling, and keeping our own garbage out of the gutter.