“How hard is it to clean up after yourself?” This is something I always ask my friends whenever we’re out and they leave bits of trash lying around. Yes, I am that person. I am also that person who pockets her trash or stuffs it in her bag if there are no trash bins around. I am also that person who looks for a proper place to put out a cigarette instead of putting it out on the ground. Maybe it has something to do with growing up abroad on litter-less streets where this value was instilled into me as a child, but all I know is that I cannot stand it when people litter.
So, when Inka Pellicer-Magnaye posted these photos of her only complaint about a recent music festival, I couldn’t resist writing about it. The following are pictures taken by Inka about what she calls her only complaint about the event: the TRASH. Apparently, these pictures don’t even cut it. See her original post here.
How appalling is that?
According to Inka’s post, the organizers kept flashing CLAYGO on the big screen, but failed to put trash bins anywhere, or at least where people could see them. She kept having to go to a booth with her trash to ask other people to dispose of it properly for her. “The eating area didn’t even have any visible trash receptacles, so people were leaving their containers on the table.”
She pleads, “We need discipline. We need to get rid of the mentality that someone else will clean up after our mess. It isn’t hard to go to the food stall you ordered from and ask them to kindly put your trash in a bag. It isn’t hard to take your used cups with you when you move your blanket from one spot to another. Or to run after your tissues and used food cartons when they get blown away by the wind. If everyone did their part and didn’t expect someone else to clean up after them, then maybe the people napping on their mats wouldn’t have gotten trash blown into their faces every time a gust of wind passed through the grounds. You wouldn’t end up tripping over a crushed water bottle every 5 steps. The first picture wasn’t even inside the grounds yet–people were tossing their bottles when they found out you couldn’t bring water in, even if there were big plastic bags and cardboard boxes you could throw them into when you got to the gates.”
Inka makes points that people really need to not just read and understand, but actually practice in real life. She says, “If everyone thought that someone else would clean up the trash for them, then no one will clean anything up. Pick up after yourself. And that goes for everywhere else you go.” I agree wholeheartedly with Inka and really hope that people start taking this seriously. Like she says, “IT STARTS WITH YOU. Don’t be apathetic to littering.”
To put it simply: there won’t be any litter if no one litters. It’s really that simple. You can’t even blame the organisers or the lack of trash bins for this. Like I said earlier, I always keep my trash with me until I find a suitable place to dispose of it. If we all do that, our country would be a much cleaner place. Think about it.
