I Hate Trashy People!

I spend my days with teenagers, and most of the time they are a self-centered obnoxious bunch, but every now and then, they remind me why I continue to expend my time and energy on them -- they are also full of energy, surprises and actually quite generous of their time and the need to work to make a difference in our world.

As part of my job, I am the adviser for our local National Honor Society chapter. Yesterday, four of my NHS students and I spent two hours removing trash from the ditches of a road that leads into our town and where I often walk my dog. For some time now, I've been utterly appalled at the amount of trash littering the ditches and ruining what should be a lovely walk in the countryside. Since NHS students have to do community service work as part of their commitment to organization, I suggested that a few of them remove this trash in honor of Earth Day. They willingly complied, and they willingly gave up a few hours of their Saturday afternoons to walk the ditches with me on a chilly and windy April day.

While I knew that the ditches along this two mile stretch of road were laden with trash, I was still astounded at the end of our clean-up to find that we had acquired almost two full pickup beds' worth of trash! Along the way we removed numerous beer bottles and cans and discarded plastic gas station soda cups, as to be expected I suppose; however, surprisingly we also found a phone charger, a used diaper, a metal fork, a tire, a running board, various pieces of siding, and even an entire vacuum cleaner!

What the hell is wrong with people?  When has our collective laziness reached the bounds where we can't even place our empty cans in our cup holders in our cars and then throw it away when we get home? Personally, I don't understand this, and I never will. We are a society of consumers, and we have a trash system designed to manage the gross amount of stuff we throw out as it is without there being any need to toss crap out the window as we drive.

"Trashy" people disgust me -- and by that word I mean the ones who throw their shit along the roadways for everybody else to "enjoy" as we drive along or stroll along a road. I don't know what goes through their minds as they casually throw their bags of fast food containers out the window while cruising along at 65 miles per hours. What do they think happens with that stuff? It sits there and ruins the area for others -- both human and animal -- until considerate people come along and pick it up

Trash receptacles exist all over this world and for a reason, so use them. Keep a trash bag in your car if you don't like having trash sitting around in your car until such a time when you can clean it out. If nothing else, realize that other people use that road and want to enjoy the view of nature and not of your crappy trash, and realize that animals survive out there and can survive longer and better without your crap ruining their habitats.

Sadly, only one day later I took a walk with my dog along the road I'd helped clean up yesterday and already there are two new pieces of trash lying around. Trashy people need to stick their own crap into their own trash cans! That's where I'd like to see them actually stick it; otherwise, they can truly "Shtick This!"