Opinion: Uncharitable thoughts while picking trash

While I picked up trash along Route 236 for several hours on Saturday morning I had plenty of time to think and most of the thoughts were quite uncharitable.  But first, the charitiable thoughts.

Charitable thought one: This town is full of many great people who extend themselves in all kinds of ways, large and small.  I love participating in volunteer activities here because it means I get to spend time with very nice people and it helps me understand how their generosity, kindness, and willingness to do work that benefits the whole town makes this such a great place to live. Not to mention, they know how to have fun and it is nourishing to be around people who move beyond just complaining, to actually doing something to make the world better.

Charitable thought two:  The support that the Town and we, as taxpayers, give to the volunteer Committees, Boards, and Commissions gives us great bang for the buck.  The Conservation Commission organized the Earth Day clean up.  The all volunteer committee recruited more volunteers for the effort, coordinated with the Town, managed the logistics of the clean up and turned out to do the clean up.  Their work mobilized many person-hours of roadside cleanup that might have fallen to paid Public Works employees. Instead, citizens were mobilized to pitch in and do this work.  And this is just one example of the work that gets done because of Town committees. The tiny allocation of money that goes to the committees really leverages a lot of good work and savings.

And now the uncharitable thoughts:

A letter to the roadside litterer:

We picked up your cigarette butts, your chewing tobacco cans, your cigarette packages, your whiskey bottles, your beer cans.  You can have your vices, they are legal and your right, although not the drinking and driving part, but to paraphrase a bumper sticker,  “The world is not your recyling bin.”

We picked up your running shoes, your energy drink bottles, your water bottles, your organic juice bottles, your vitamin water bottles, and your nutrition bar wrappers.  All that time and money spent on giving yourself a healthy body and endless energy, and you don’t even have the energy to throw your trash away properly.  What’s up with that?

We picked up your toilet seat, your blue Calvin Klein briefs, your pink lace thong, your toothbrushes, and more that can’t even be mentioned here.  We don’t want that much information about your life.

We picked up your shingles, your buckets, your insulation, your sheets of plywood, your chairs, your desks, your tires, your tarps, your unidentifiable pieces of metal. What are you thinking?  That your “contribution” to roadside litter won’t make a difference? That it’s okay to throw this stuff on other people’s land?

We picked up your stuffed animals, your Hannah Montana shoe boxes, your juice boxes, your disposable diapers.  Is this what you want your children to learn?

I just don’t get it.  Do you just not think about it?  Did some important part of your brain get struck by lightning? Are you just lazy or are you doing it out of spite?  Even if you think the whole environmental thing is a crock and think people like me are treehugging moonbats, why would you trash the place where you live?

How can we get you to stop?

Sincerely,

Molly