On pigs

So today I spent a couple hours cleaning up litter along the roadside, along with a few dozen other area residents. We do this several times a year as volunteers because it's our community and we're trying to keep it nice, and I also do it because I truly feel that everyone should give something back, even if it's only a few hours of volunteer time a month. In just two hours, we picked up over 163 large bags of trash, and I'm talking the huge 60-gallon bags given to us by WV-DOT. What bugs me is the large percentage of recyclable material that we picked up. Most of it--at least 80% by our estimate--was aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles, and other items that could so easily have gone into the recycle bins given free to every area resident, including I'm guessing, the litterbugs.

Of course there was no excuse for any of the other trash to be out there either. fast-food bags, empty styrofoam cups and other debris could just as easily have been taken home and put in the trash proper, but our area seems cursed with any number of selfish pigs who view our roadsides as their trash cans.

And then of course there are all those people who live in the houses on the land that adjoins the roads where we're picking up. Much if not most of the trash was actually on someone's land, most of it on occupied residential lots (some lots are vacant but all of those are still owned by someone)and you'd think that the owners of these lots could at least show some pride or concern and pick up their own sections. Come on--you complain that your house or lot won't sell, but it--or your neighbor's--roadside looks like hell. Not to worry though. Someone else did your work today and it looks good again, at least for a while.

Now I don't mind doing some work to maintain my neighborhood and my community, but it'd sure be nice if me and the other volunteers didn't have to devote that time and effort to cleaning up after some pigs who undoubtedly live here just like we do. We could be doing a lot more work out on the trails or the community parks if we weren't picking up other people's trash that could just as easily have been kept in the cars and dumped into any number of trash cans or dumpsters. And that recyclable material? metals are hitting an all-time high, and plastics come from oil, and while recyclers can get that stuff back into play as new product, thus helping keep supply up and cost down, every can thrown into the woods (or sent to the landfill in one of WV-DOT's collection bags) is gone for good.

Now if you're one of the people who refuses to litter and who recycles, then I thank you for not adding to our workload today. But if you're one of those people who is inclined to just toss your trash anywhere, I'll ask you to please stay out of my community and my country if possible unless and until you're willing to change your ways, stop acting like a thoughtless pig, and think about how you can become part of the solution every day instead of remaining part of the problem.

And lest I forget: Kudos to everyone else who turned out today to make this litter clean-up so successful!