Our newest hobby? Garbage picking! In this day & age of environmental friendliness, we've been trying to teach the girls about recycling, composting etc. Our street is TERRIBLE for litter. It's actually embarrassing! Why on earth people would want to throw their trash on their own road is beyond me! We rarely get any traffic other than the people who actually live here so I'm guessing it has to be people who live here doing most of it. We're not just talking the odd gum wrapper here. There's old water cooler bottles, entire bags of McDonald's garbage, old machine parts, beer cans etc. Our street isn't that long, even if you lived at the very last house, you're a max of 2½ minutes from home! You couldn't possibly stand that Gatorade bottle in your vehicle that long???? Of course, this isn't everyone but it has to be SOME. One neighbour saw us picking up stuff and sortof made fun of us. I just shrugged and said "well, I just get tired of looking at it!" and kept on going.
Whenever we go for a walk now, the girls have their little eagle eyes constantly on the lookout for any piece of garbage they see. I figure we live here, it's our street and we can help make things better. There's a quote I saw somewhere or maybe one of those motivational bits that says "be the change you want to see in the world". I can't fix everything but I can set a good example and hope it rubs off!
Although, with almost 4 year olds you have to be careful! They tend to latch on to an idea like a dog with a bone. Every time they see something thrown on the ground, not only do we have to stop & retrieve EVERY scrap, they also like to holler at the top of their lungs "GARBAGE on the ground? What's THAT Called??????? LITTERING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" which might not be so cool when someday, they spot someone right in the act! But how can I fault them for just wanting to improve things the way I taught them to??? Besides if 3¾ year olds can do it, how hard can it be???
