...picked up just one piece of litter a day, and put it in the nearest litter-bin, how much, much more pleasant our cities, suburbs and countryside would be...please join me in this campaign. One piece of litter a day....
If necessary, carry the wretched bit of litter with you until you find a bin. (I carry a small packet of baby-wipes to clean my hands). You will find bins in shops and in fast-food places, and in offices and on trains...and more than once I have dropped in to an estate-agent or similar office and said "May I just drop this in the bin here?" and have never been refused.
Incidentally, one of the things I have learned in this campaign is that smoking is still very popular, but that people are uglier about it. They aren't allowed a smokers-corner in a pub or any other comfortable place. So far more cigarette-packets are now dropped in the street, which is the only place where people are allowed to smoke. The habit of simply chucking the packet down especially applies to younger people, who have not been given any code of manners for smoking: they don't know about bins and ash-trays, about offering a light to others, or passing around a packet to share while sitting comfortably together talking. They smoke in a rather ugly, semi-furtive, greedy sort of way...it's not unlike the ugly shovelling of food that the overloaded-hamburger-in-polystyrene-box has produced. The cigarette and the hamburger are both consumed hurriedly in the street, and the wrappers discarded, and the everyday human ordinariness of eating and talking and relaxing together somehow just isn't there...
4 comments:
Yes, I do this....maybe you gave me the idea years ago. It's a good idea. Julia
It's hard to believe, Auntie Joanna, that with all the violence happening over the past months in London, that you focus on picking up a piece of litter!! It's like non-reality. That's why I went from looking at your blog frequently to, now, almost never. Joe
I take a different view from Joe's. You have to start somewhere. Not all of us can break up street fights or join the UN peacekeepers. We can't take care of the whole world but we can do something about our little bit of it. This is akin to the "Broken Windows" theory that was highly effective in fighting crime in some US cities. Go after the minor misdemeanours and you'll create a more orderly environment and discourage the more serious stuff from happening. Picking up litter is on a smaller scale yet but it's a start.
I also am delighted that Joanna sets the right example in picking up litter. We should all do our bit to make this world a better place and this is one small but important way we can do so.
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