The Dirty Truth About Littering
The world is a filthy place. More than $11.5 billion is spent every year on cleaning up litter, money that would be far more ideal for distribution towards helping the world’s poorest people. Nine billion tons of litter a year ends up in the world’s oceans, with most of it finding permanent rest on the ocean floor. While many of us express a desire for the planet to be a cleaner place, the reason it is so polluted in the first place is because of us humans, pure and simple.
Every time we drop a candy wrapper on the pavement, toss a Coca-Cola can from the windows of the car or, reprehensibly, dump a useless home appliance on the side of the road, we are feeding the monster of littering. If you have littered before, think about why you did it and then take a step back to realize that your excuse was most likely a feeble one.
Hopefully, this stark infographic from Cleaning Services Group https://www.cleaningservicesgroup.co.uk/ will open our eyes to the true scale of the littering epidemic that exists today because of our negligence. However, just as a seemingly inconsequential paper drop can have a damaging effect on the environment, a routine action such as picking up pieces of litter or educating people as to its harmful effects can be equally effective in combatting the problem. One small step can have big repercussions.