Saturday, March 17, 2007

Trash Walking

A simple way to help the environment is to pick up trash in your neighborhood. It doesn’t take much effort. Just take a trash bag with you when you go for a walk. Pick up the litter as you walk along. Encourage your neighbors to do the same.

The picture show the trash I picked up when I did my morning run. Even the clear plastic bag was found on the walk. It collected quite a bit and I wasn’t trying hard. I just went along my regular route.



Besides making your neighborhood look better, picking up litter helps the environment in many ways. The trash in your neighborhood streets, alleys and yards will find their way into storm sewers. The storm sewers flow into rivers and streams. Eventually, much of this trash can make it to the oceans.

The marine environment is especially sensitive to plastic debris. Wildfowl and sea creatures are hurt or killed when they mistakenly eat or become entangled in it. Death can result form a blocked digestive tract or from toxic by-products of digestion of some plastics, or through starvation from a false sense of being full.

Ocean trash come from many sources. The litter in your neighborhood is only one of them. So, picking up this litter can eliminate one source. Prevention is also important. Don’t let your trash bins overflow. Of course don’t throw litter on the streets.