Monday, Dec. 01, 2008

Every Monday Matters: Not community service; serving your community

Facts

Americans generate 180 million tons of trash every year.

Common litter includes cigarette butts, plastic bags, paper, candy wrappers, fast-food packaging, bottle caps, six-pack can holders, glass bottles and plastic straws.

Men and women are equally likely to litter.

People under age 15 are least likely to litter. People over the age of 25 are most likely to litter.

Animals from nearly 300 species die every year from ingesting or getting entangled in marine debris.

People litter because they 1) don't think the item is litter, 2) view litter removal as someone else's responsibility, or 3) lack knowledge about the environmental effects of littering.

Take action today

1. Spend one hour today picking up litter. Or decide that every time you see a piece of litter today, you will pick it up and throw it away.

2. If you see someone litter, politely ask them to pick it up. Or just pick it up yourself and maybe the person who dropped it will see you and get the hint.

3. Organize a team of neighbors, friends, co-workers or fellow church members to pick up litter in a specific neighborhood for an hour. Bring rubber gloves and garbage bags and make it more fun by turning the cleanup effort into a game or contest.

4. Enjoy making a difference, getting exercise, getting to know people better and having cleaner surroundings.

If every person picked up just one piece of litter today, there would be more than 300 million fewer pieces of litter in our country. If every person picked up 10 pieces, there would be 3 billion pieces fewer.

If you and your friends spend just one hour today picking up litter in your own neighborhood, you will not only pick up thousands of pieces of trash, you will also make a tremendous impact on your community. Just be sure to bend your knees.

You matter

What started as a high school project has turned into a new mission for Becky and Isabella of Akron, Ohio.

After completing their weeklong high school community service project, called Project Gutter, Becky and Isabella decided to make picking up litter their new favorite pastime. We're serious.

"Our school project was totally disgusting. I mean, we cleaned street gutters every day for a week," shared a grossed-out Becky. "But we quickly realized that if we had not pulled this trash out of the gutters, it would have ended up in rivers and lakes and stuff. That would have been even worse."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist -- not anymore, at least -- to understand that our environment is suffering. Every newspaper, magazine and TV news program informs us just how bad the situation has become. But knowing there is a problem and doing something about it are very different things.

"I think our whole class was surprised by the amount of trash we all collected. Cigarette butts especially. They were everywhere," Isabella said. "So Becky and I decided to lead a team of a few people to continue to make sure our streets stayed cleaned."

Isabella, Becky and a few of their friends now pick up litter one Saturday of every month. They even sort the items by using different bags -- some for trash and some for recyclables. So besides beautifying their community and helping the environment, they are also putting a little bit of money in their pockets.

"You know, it's not about the money, but it is always fun to take the recycle bags to the recycle center to see how much we earned," admitted Becky. "We usually just spend the money on buying more rubber gloves and garbage bags for future outings. Our goal is to get more and more people to join us. We like to see it as our fun little club."

We know that high schools offer many types of clubs -- athletics, academic, arts, etc., but this might be the first high school litter club we have heard about. Nothing against the rest of the clubs, but we hope this one really takes off.

Becky and Isabella, thank you for the reminding all of us that we can make a difference. One piece of litter at a time. You Matter.

Visit EveryMondayMatters.com to buy the book, get involved and share your stories.