Picking Up

For my community service, I decided to go out and pick up trash. It seems like the most common idea that people think of when they hear 'community service', but a lot of people would choose anything other than having to pick up someone else's trash. Honestly, I was embarrassed when cars drove past the tracks where I was picking up trash. It almost seemed like a punishment. The end result was actually rewarding though. I made my roommate help me because I didn't want to pick up bottles and bags for several hours alone.

Trash is considered a form of pollution. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not as deadly as polluted air, but still has severe consequences. It affects the way plants grow and most items of garbage are dangerous to animals. Summers' article "Eat Pollution" said it's "benifits and burdens solely in terms of individual rights and responsibilities". The article discussed contaminated pollutions that effect us, people. But litter, other than just a sight for sore eyes, doesn't effect people too much. People need to live with the enviroment rather than thinking the envirment is meant for them. Summers quote says responsibility comes from individuals; so each person could find a trash can but are generally too lazy. Robert Higgins and Robert Figueroa both discuss how pollution relates to race, or the less fortunate. I disagree with this. Many people who seem less fortunate are just lazy and happy, or atleast content, with that. The lazy ones are the same ones who don't pick up after themselves and don't care about others. In the case of what I experienced while picking up trash along the traintracks, I saw litter flooding down the sides of the tracks by all the small, falling apart, homes. When we made it farther down to where the tracks backed up to a few business buildings, there was much less trash. Why is this? Simply because the business men care enough to show their customers that they run a clean business. So, it may seem that poorer communities are trashy because no one cares about the people living there, but really the people living there need to care about themselves and their neighbors to really turn things around.

So my community service taught me that a little time makes a big difference and everyone needs to take a few minutes of their day to pick something up off the ground as they pass over it. It's better for the enviroment and has an overall better look.