One topic I can get worked up about almost every day is the issue with trash: Have you noticed that no matter how far, deep or hight you travel – the one thing you can’t seem to get away from is trash laying around? Even just in the last few months we brought back bits of rubbish from the ocean floor, stuffed our bags with old bottles coming back from the middle of the forest and are just shocked of the amount of rubbish gathering in the streets of some cities. Why do so many people not worry about this at all and don’t even think twice before dropping this candy wrapper or that beer can? I don’t even expect them to go the next step of avoiding rubbish in the first place, and I am not a saint and do forget to take my bags to the shops every now and then, but there is some sort of rubbish collecting system in most places and it’s not hard to use! How do you even talk with someone who drops his empty pack of cigarettes in the forest with the words “the forrester can collect it later”? (This one was particular difficult as we didn’t have a common language…)
We live in such a wonderful world, why would you compromise your own surroundings like this? I am sure you have great and sad examples as well, one tragic one for us was the explanation why one of the beautiful sulfur lakes in the Yellowstone National Park (one of our favorite places) was getting less colourful and less beautiful over the years: Visitors are throwing cans in the water causing a blockage and a change in the temperature that the bacteria producing this colour can not handle. Cans? Into the water of a national park you came to admire? That’s pretty sad in my opinion. (more infos)
Maybe you can help to spread the word, as the world is already faced with around 7 400 000 000 people producing trash. If we do our bit and influence three others we will see a change. (Have you seen “Pay it forward” / “Das Gluecksprinzip”?)
Every year we dump a massive 2.12 billion tons of waste. If all this waste was put on trucks they would go around the world 24 times. This is because 99% of the things we buy is dumped withing 6 months. (according to theworldcounts.com)
Avoid. Re-use. Recycle. – and remove some you find.
Images: transgreyton.wordpress.co, yellowstonepark.com)