It may seem a drastic, harsh statement but doesn't it bother you in the least when you see someone dropping garbage out of a moving car?In T&T, dropping litter is almost second nature to many. From chewing gum being spat out onto pavements, to fast food boxes and soft drink cans being thrown out the windows of moving cars, Trinis across the country seem to think the island will clean itself up. In fact, there's a common statement made by litter droppers that goes something like, "What yuh think CEPEP there for?"They seem to all have one common rationale, that being that if they don't litter CEPEP workers won't have jobs.
This is your place
Isn't it amazing that when Trinis leave the island for the world beyond, they grasp, with little convincing, the importance of using garbage bins or holding trash until a bin is found? We tend to respect the laws of first world countries, far easier than we do our own and so the question that then arises is: Are we, as a people, unappreciative of what we have-the place that we've been so blessed to be born into? T&T is far from paradise as many Trinis claim and while this may seem a ludicrous statement to some, it just might be the reality check we all need.Tourists won't visit a place where garbage is strewn along the streets, left behind on sandy beaches and floated down streams, rivers and drains. We're wrecking this God-given paradise, harming nature's natural habitat and tarnishing the beauty of a place that very well could be paradise.
Rid the capital of rats nah!
Imagine how wonderful it would be to walk the streets of Port-of-Spain without stumbling upon an empty food box or seeing rats and roaches feeding on food that's been left behind by someone who hurriedly discards the remains of their lunch.There've been so many pleas made by environmentalists and government agencies for nationals to simply stop the harmful practice, to be pro-active in the face of a potential disaster. We know that litter creates flooding woes.In fact it creates financial woes for our national treasury as well because when drains become clogged with garbage, government is then forced to spend money to clean up the problem that we've created.Money spent on something that could so easily be prevented is money that could instead be spent on national issues such as healthcare improvements for the hospitals and road repair works.Think about it for just one second and consider how much of a better place T&T would be if you or someone you knew would stop dropping paper, soft drink bottles, candy wrappers, KFC boxes and other trash on the ground or out the window.
Stop confusing our children
At our nation's schools, teachers work hard at ensuring our children are educated on the problems associated with littering; however it's sad that when our children leave their classrooms they are struck in the face with the stark reality that mommy, daddy, uncle and aunty all litter and there's hardly anything they can do about it. We must set examples for our children.We must lead by example even with something as simple as placing our garbage in trash cans or holding on to it until there's one in sight. Today, the onus is on you to start a new trend-a clean trend-a trend to beautify and cleanse so that T&T can be a literal paradise, not the kind we've conjured in our minds based on the freedom we all have.We cannot do just what we please, whenever we please, especially when it's something as displeasing as littering.
