Dear litterbugs,
How could you be so selfish?
Littering is by definition any form of discarding trash inappropriately. For example if you put bottles, gum, straw wrappers, cigarette butts, paper, used napkins and tissues in the trash then you are littering if you put these items anywhere but the trash.
I see people leave their empty water bottle on shelves in stores while they shop. That is not where bottles go. Someone has to clean that up because you were too lazy to put it in one of the 200 trash bins in the mall.
We all see people flick their gum or cigarette butts out of the window of their car. Litter in your own car, not my planet.
Receipts are annoying but don't throw them on the ground of the parking lot. Don't take the receipt if you don't want it.
I say people who litter are selfish because they do not think of anyone else. They do not consider how dirty and littered the side of the road is from trash. They are not thinking about the hungry animals that mistake a plastic wrapper for real food and die from it. They don’t understand that when things decompose the filter into the soil and water supply. They don’t understand that their plastic cup takes 450 years to decompose and contains chemicals that seep into the ground. People who litter don’t think about anything.
What to know what happens to people who litter? Karma.
I have a perfect example of how I know this. As I headed toward the parking lot where residents of the college park, I was behind a car with two people in it. The person in the passenger seat rolled down her window and chucked a Dunkin Doughnuts plastic coffee cup out into the grass on the side of the road. It took everything I had not to lay on my horn, I chose to yell at my windshield instead. Since we were headed toward the shuttle parking lot, I assumed that they would take the same shuttle. That would have been a tense shuttle ride if I unleashed my road-rage on them. When we get to the parking lot, they pulled in too. I parked and headed into the shuttle still upset with the strangers over a plastic cup. The couple boarded the shuttle after me and went to sit down. As the litterbug takes her seat, she whacks her head on the overhanging compartment. Nothing is more rewarding than seeing karma bite someone in the butt.
At the end of the day, if you litter, you are being lazy and selfish. You are not the only person on the planet, and your actions leave a mark that lasts for years:
Plastic bags take 10-20 years to decompose.
Plastic bottles take 450 years to decompose.
Aluminum cans spend 80-200 years in landfills to decompose.
Glass doesn’t decompose. (But glass is very easy to recycle since it is melted down and remade into glass.)
Paper takes 2-6 weeks to decompose.
Cigarette butts take 10-12 years to decompose.
Batteries take 100 years to decompose.
Sanitary napkins take 500-800 years to decompose.
Thank you,
Everyone else on the planet.
