On Saturday, inspired by the likes of Sam Knowles I took to the streets. Well, actually, I just took to my street, with a bag and a rake and a strong desire to remove as many piles of poop and bags of poop (doggie, I’m thinking) as possible. Sam Knowles took action on her pet peeve, and I decided to take action on mine.
As I cleaned up the many messes along my short street I fumed. How can we brag about what a great community we are, when so many of us can not even bother to put their litter (and poop) in the appropriate place? Not doing so not only shows a lack of pride, but also a lack of consideration. Public space does not exist for the benifit of your personal mess.
As a child of the 1980s, I was highly influenced by the massive anti-littering campaign that I digested alongide my Saturday morning cartoons. I thought this issue was tackled ages ago. Clearly I was wrong, but that said, how do we change this?
The municipality helps out citizen initiatives on these matters when it is called upon, and I appreciate that. But I think that on such small, yet important matters, we could use a little leadership. A municipally-organized community Spring clean-up, with neighbourhood block parties at the end could help motivate, and who knows... even shift the spirit of things in a more positive direction.
Until then, I’ll just keep at my own pet-task during my Saturday morning toddler-walks down Oceanview. And I’ll take comfort knowing that, once a week I will be doing one small thing to make a positive impact. Although I wish I didn’t have to.
