Value of picking up trash

Thank you so much to Burt Constable and Lu Semenzin for bringing more awareness to the problem of trash littering the landscape. My husband and I also often take a bag with us to pick up the garbage that we see when we walk around our neighborhood and are really appalled that there is so much of it.

We feel like we're doing our part to keep our little corner of the world cleaner, but I shudder to think of all of the pollution that's left on the ground, washing down storm drains and eventually into waterways, choking our rivers and eventually making its way into the ocean.

Human activity is fouling up the planet in so many ways and mostly there are no easy solutions to combat the problems. However, picking up trash wherever and whenever one sees it, is a simple, no-cost way to help alleviate the messes that we make.

One can spend five minutes, an hour, a day or a lifetime picking up trash, but there will always be more, as it is generated by humans. That doesn't mean that our efforts to clean up are in vain and that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try. Collectively, let's make it a movement and pick up garbage not just on select days, such as only Earth Day, or designated river cleanups, but whenever we can and wherever we see it.

Randi Perlman

Elgin