For the last week, Stevo and I have been on a mission to pick up recyclables on our walk in Colonel Sam Smith Park, at the base of Kipling just south of Lakeshore Blvd in Toronto. On Sunday alone, we picked up over 50 water bottles and cans strewn on beaches, pathways and caught in grasslands. We didn't have enough bags to pick up all the Tim Horton cups (a real bee in my bonnet I might add), straws, bottle tops, fry containers, etc that also polluted the landscape. The overwhelming message - people are pigs.
Post our blitz on Sunday, we managed to pick up at least another 25 more, in the very same spots. It's like empty water bottles are a winter crop. If only this were true, then one pass through the park on Community Clean Up Day (this Saturday) would solve the problem. Unfortunately, litter has no seasonal preference. It appears, surely not due to any questionable human behaviour, regardless of the time of year. And it's bullshit.
Wherever we find litter, we also find garbage and recycling bins. It seems it's too much to ask students at Humber College's lake shore campus, or its sister high school, to take an extra two steps to drop their junk in a bin. Lazy little bastards. It's their world they're polluting. I feel guilty about the legacy I'm leaving, then I see the way tomorrow's generation behaves when it comes to litter. The crying native had an impact on me. Perhaps this PSA needs to make a comeback.
Tomorrow, we'll head out, like we do every year, to clean up the crap left by people who don't really give a rat's ass about the future they're building for themselves. You can rest assure that within the week, we'll be retrieving yet another bottle (these things need to be banned, or at least have a deposit attached to them) from a water or path way.
At least our hands will be clean...after we wash them, after we pick up other people's garbage. But I'm not bitter...
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