Yesterday, I saw an old man, barely able to walk, picking up rubbish. All the other kids trick or treating walk right past without a single thought, I wondered; why hadn’t I been more like him? Picking up rubbish even if it’s not your own. Why had the kids decided to walk past with strong, capable legs, – which I’m not saying that the elderly people don’t have legs that aren’t capable – yet the old man picked it up with weaker legs.
Picking up rubbish wouldn’t just help with our plants, but it would also help with plastic in the ocean. Rubbish ending up in the water is quite common, to be exact 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic estimated to be in our ocean. More than 80% of the world’s sewage is discharged into the ocean, now why would this be such a big problem? Animals and their habitats, 100,000 animals die annually from entanglement. It’s all because we forget to throw away one piece of rubbish, you may think to yourself, “oh it’s just one piece of rubbish! Won’t do any harm.” Well a lot of other people think that too, so imagine what the damage of “that one piece rubbish” could do.
Now imagine if you were a mother turtle, chilling with your baby turtles on the beach. You head out to grab some food and go back just to find your group of baby turtles laying dead covered in plastic. It wouldn’t be a lovely sight nor would it be safe anymore for even yourself as a grown turtle. This is why we should do daily clean ups at the beach, picking up litter no matter how small the scrap is.
Picking up rubbish is not only benefiting the environment, it helps our animals and the habitats they live in. We’re not only helping the animals but we’re also helping our future generations to have a healthy, rubbish free life. Their habitat is also a part of our home. Next time you drop a piece of rubbish, think to yourself: how far will this one piece of rubbish go?