The sun beat down on me, and the hot air made it hard to breath. Midwest weather in the summer can be strange; one day it’s 50 degrees and the next bordering 80 and tornado watches are in effect. But, despite the strange weather it’s nice to get out into “nature” and go for a walk. And the reason I emphasize nature is because I live in the suburbs. What kids call trees, I call twigs. They’re so small and fragile they have to be held up by stakes and wires. Traveling throughout town, most of the trees are like this. Little pieces of man planted nature all nicely lined up decorate the street sides.
Down by the park strong tall oaks used to provide homes for animals, and protection from the sun for visitors. Recently, they’ve been torn from the ground leaving much of the area bare, exposing the line of businesses just beyond the parks edge. The creek running through the park has been barricaded with rocks, and more twigs have replaced the proud older trees.
The paved walking trails seem to attract the heat from the sun, or is it the car’s exhaust as it drives by? I continued to walk and noticed a piece of paper flapping in the wind. It stopped next to me as it smacked against a cinder block. At first I walked past it, ignoring the litter. Then I glanced down again and realized it was mine. Mr. Tumnus and Lucy from the "Narnia" movie started back at me; I printed a reference picture for a drawing a while ago. I no longer needed the picture, so I threw it out. I picked up the paper and sighed. It was a reminder that trash never really goes away. It’s always going to be there. It may not be in my room, garbage can or even better recycling. It’ll be in a landfill slowly growing.
I throw out so much: notebooks, styrofoam bowls, left over packaging of a new product, napkins. This stuff doesn’t just disappear after I throw it in the trash. It takes up space somewhere else, along with everybody else’s trash. Multiple times at food gatherings hosts offer paper or Styrofoam plates and plastic silverware. Once at a dinner there were Styrofoam plates and porcelain ones right next to them. Nine out of ten people grabbed a Styrofoam plate. I grabbed the porcelain one just as my friend reached for the Styrofoam one and said,
“It takes over 500+ years for Styrofoam is decompose in a landfill.”
I continued on to placed my lunch on my plate and sat down. I heard a clink as she placed her porcelain plate on the table next to me.
Be that one who won’t use Styrofoam or plastic. Try to recycle more and consume less. So many people grabbed Styrofoam plates, even though the trash and the dish deposit are right next to each other. So why the temptation to use things that are bad for the earth? It would’ve taken the same amount of effort to grab a porcelain plate and real silverware.
As much as we all would wish, things don’t just disappear they just go somewhere else. Someday people might start to see an effect of our actions, or we can be proactive and be more conscientious. Big trees do a lot of good for the planet, why dig them up just to simply replace them with a smaller one? It is going to take a long time for the smaller tree to grow as big as its predecessor.
Take into consideration what materials were put into your conveniences; disposable utensils that aren’t that disposable to save doing dishes. Gas to drive down the block, when walking would’ve done you and the environment so much better. Plastic bags to throw away once you get home, because taking cloth ones to the stores are too much work.
"What is right is often forgotten by convenience." -Body Thoene
