The Earth Is Not Your Personal Garbage Can- Don’t Litter!

There’s an area in my neighborhood that is a magnet for litter. It’s the area around those beloved CSX railroad tracks on the north side of the Lake Bonny neighborhood. I suspect that a good portion of the litter gets thrown from a vehicle window while someone is sitting, waiting for the train to pass, as the most common item littering both sides of the road is cigarette butts. But there also are plenty of beer bottles, drink cups, straws, broken lighters, etc.

A Mid-Florida Federal Credit Union sits on the corner near this railroad track. And they are the source of the second most common item that gets littered- candy wrappers. I’m not blaming Mid-Florida. They give customers suckers and mints after each transaction. It’s a nice touch. But it’s the SOBs who receive the candy that I have a major beef with.

This morning, after driving by these railroad tracks for a couple of weeks and being disgusted by the filth, I walked down there and picked up a bag of trash. A FULL bag of trash. Those mint and sucker wrappers were everywhere, along with a large amount of bank slips that I guess fly out of the holders at the drive-thru when people open them on windy days.

Seeing all of these wrappers everywhere drove home a point to me: you can’t give people free candy and expect them not to use the Earth as their own personal trash can. Too many people just throw those wrappers right out the car window- out of sight, out of mind.

Mid-Florida, here’s my suggestion, for what it’s worth: Stop giving away candy to your customers. Instead, you should donate that candy to organizations such as Keep Polk County Beautiful, Lakeland Clean & Beautiful and Keep Winter Haven Beautiful so they can give the candy to the thousands of volunteers who spend time picking up litter and beautifying communities each year. I bet if you give the candy to those volunteers, we won’t find the empty wrappers on the ground.

And when your customers ask why you don’t give away the candy anymore, tell them. Tell them that it’s because too many customers litter the candy wrappers. And then tell them who you’re giving the candy to. Maybe it will get them thinking. Maybe it will make them think twice about the litter they throw out their windows.

For those of you who hate litter as much as I do, I encourage you to do your part.

1. Commit to not littering and teach your children not to litter.
2. If you see a piece of litter, pick it up! Think what a difference it would make if everyone would pick up just one piece of litter every day.
3. Cigarette smokers: cigarette butts are more than litter; they are a fire hazard. Quit throwing them on the ground.

For those of you who would like to really send a message to litterers when you witness them throwing trash out their vehicle windows, become a Litter Trooper. This is a program through Keep Polk County Beautiful where you can report litterbugs to law enforcement. KPCB has all the information online and it has downloadable Litter Trooper Report forms.

photo credit: Idiolector