I pick up litter. That’s what I do. And I do it almost every time I go out for a walk.
Picking up litter is something I started doing when I was a kid. I was in Boy Scouts and we took an oath to do a good deed every day. If you took the oath seriously, that would mean doing 365 good deeds in a year, every year for the rest of your life. That sounds pretty serious to commit to, but it is really not that hard to do, if you remember to try.
The scout’s manual was a little vague about what counted as a good deed. Also, it didn’t mention stockpiling them but that seemed only fair because some days finding a good deed to do was difficult whereas on other days you could get several done.
The manual suggested that a good deed would be helping a little old lady across the street. I don’t know why they listed that first, but they did. There was no mention of helping little old men across the street, which seemed like a sexist oversight, but I assumed they counted as well. It could take you quite a while looking to find a little old lady who was out and about.
Also, there was a bit of a loophole in this good deed because it didn’t really specify that she wanted to cross the street. So, I pictured a troop of scouts dragging her across the road, kicking and screaming, only to be dragged back across the road by another troop of scouts. She went back and forth across the street until she made her escape or ran out of troops of scouts trying to get their good deed done for the day.
The second good deed listed was holding a door open for someone. I consider that common courtesy and not really a good deed, unless you ran ahead to open a door so a person carrying parcels could get through. Then that would probably count. So, door holding held some possibility.
They also said a good deed could be picking up litter. I liked that one because a person doesn’t have to look far or long to find a piece of litter, particularly if you include cigarette butts as litter which I do. You could also plant a tree and as a scout, I planted hundreds of them. Also, you could do some volunteer work of some sort. So doing 365 good deeds in a year really isn’t that hard.
The problem with Yellowknife and our society is that the litter and trash problem just keeps getting worse. At first, I had a five-piece policy: I would pick up at least five pieces when I went out and count that as a good deed. Eventually, the bending down and picking pieces up by hand was getting to be a problem. Plus, some of the litter you really don’t want to touch. So, I got a picker-upper stick.
After trying for decades to get the city to take litter seriously, I finally said the heck with this, so now on walks I will try to pick up all the litter I see with the help of my lovely and very patient wife Diane, who helps out. That is the only way to get an area halfway clean.
We are not alone in doing this. Across the country, there are people out there trying to clean the country up one piece of litter at a time. They are all setting an example for others to follow. They do it because it is a job that needs doing and every piece they pick up is one less piece of trash getting into our environment.
Meanwhile, most people, including our politicians, just ignore the problems — they walk or drive by. In fact, many of our problems are caused by laws and rules the politicians dream up that often do more harm than good. I remain hopeful that eventually they will see the light.
Want to make the world a better place? Try to do a good deed every day and pick up a little litter when you can. Every bit helps.