All the world's your ashtray, I'm just your Marlboro

I just got back from walking to school with my little man, on the way there is a small grass & bush area with a playground that sits next to the school. Scattered across the grass was a torn up catalogue for books, the one that every kid gets in their school bag once a month. My immediate thought is: "thats terrible, some people are so lazy, kids these days, yadda yadda" then my second thought is "whose responsibility is it to clean it up?" and my third thought.."I gotta get the boy to school on time but I guess that I can pick it up on the way back"

Going back two minutes as we had walked past a house a lady had come out with her dog to take it for a walk. She says hello and my daughter starts laughing and gushing over the dog and we both head off in different directions.

Leaving the school I actually took a different exit heading to the shops to grab some groceries (forgeting my dilligent thoughts of rubbish clean up) and on the way to the shops we walk past the lady walking her dog, but she isn't just doing that... she is picking up rubbish with her handy grabber and lugging a garbage bag of litter around as her dogs trots about. What an absolute champion this lady is, off her own bat she is cleaning up the suburb for no reward and no doubt no recognition. Such a simple idea, for those people who have a dog to walk to be actively making a difference whilst doing it, kudos to her.

As we left the shops she was still going, with a ramjampackful bag, sadly it had only been about 20 minutes of time since the school drop off and the shop exit, pretty sad that a full garbage bag full of litter can be picked up in one park area.

So in the end it comes down to WHY?? what gives people the arrogance, the audacity, the laziness to decide that they aren't required to use bins that are at the park, in their house, out the front of everyone's house? who do they think is going to pick it up? or don't they care?

Go stop at any traffic light and look at the median strip and it's bound to be covered with cigarette butts, this makes me fume like no tomorrow, every single car has an ashtray but smokers still don't use them! How is this a socially accepted norm? its the old "everybody else does it so what will it matter if I do it"

When I was a kid there was no mandatory doggy-doo pick up, so when we went down to the park to kick the footy etc we had to look out for bombs. Times have changed and its no longer acceptable and yes you see the occaisonal one around but in general the expectations and standards of dog owner ship have changed for the better and thats better for everyone.

As a kindy student my son has a "no wrapper" policy being instilled into him via his kindy class, he gets rewarded for having lunch with no wrappers. So he actively tells us what he wants and doesnt want in his lunchbox according to whether we take the wrapper off at home first. I am impressed and hopeful that this kind of "cleaner" behaviour is being instilled in all kids in all schools. They recycle all their scrap paper, they encourage the kids to bring in batteries for recylcing/reuse, they always ask for cardboard/egg cartons and I for one am all for it, get 'em while they are young.

I'm not exactly a tree hugging greenie but I don't want to live in garbage tip either

PS. there is also the story of the "Car Park Sex Bandits" who like to get it on in the car-park where I work and then dump the condom and clean up tissues on the ground where they parked, coz that exactly what I want to arrive to work and find, and clean up. Don't get me started....