A figure lays on the ground. It doesn’t move. Its eyes pressed shut; a net tied firmly to its neck. Blood puddles around its body. It lays quite still. Quite lifeless. Quite dead.
And so is the case for wildlife that unluckily finds litter. Its life in utter danger, nearing its end. The lucky ones get freed by the few caring people who find it.
Wait- hold up. Aside from the very profound story, what is actually going on? Is it another tale about stealthy criminals and murder?
Not exactly.
Though littering seems to just be bad manners that no one would care about, it has harmful affects on nature. We all know that much, right? However, as any other problem, we might recognise it as bad, but we would only be motivated to take action if it deeply affected us.
Now how do I get people to care more about litter? Of course, I could make up a heartbreaking tale about dead turtles- like the one above -and trigger emotions. Or maybe I could tell the story from the animal’s point of view. But maybe those are too dramatic.
What about punishing people if they litter? And this one’s obvious. Signs along the road saying that littering fines are a hundred dollars. Maybe more. But who’s there to catch people red-handed? If you notice these signs, there are cans, and wrappers on the ground with them. Littering seems like an unimportant cause to cities because of more important – really more asked about causes. It’s fair to say that people just won’t want to fuss about a few chocolate wrappers. But if you don’t stop littering, then you shouldn’t complain about dirty roads either, right?
Littering and pollution have taken over in every aspect. Now we even have ‘space junk’. Another type of pollution is light pollution. This not only wastes energy, but also makes our skies too bright to see specific stars. Air pollution is also extremely important to address. It’s the cause of Global Warming.
This is the Littering Dilemma.