The Wonders of Garbage

It still amazes me to no end that in this day and age, people still throw their garbage out of their cars and onto the road. I understand this happens all over the state, and when we lived in New York, people treated their own neighborhoods like garbage dumps, throwing refuse wherever they felt like it, but come on. This is Vermont, people should know better.

This situation becomes particularly acute in the Spring when the snow melts and all the trash comes to light. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a preponderance of Budweiser and McDonald’s products. Somehow, this makes perfect sense.

My understanding is that teenagers need a place to drink, and since they can’t do it at home, they drink in their cars and then lose the evidence by tossing in onto the road. How brilliant is that? It’s a lose-lose situation, drinking and driving and then littering. BTW, this was explained to me very matter-of-factly. Anyway, yesterday while walking on the road, I brought a trash bag because the sight of all that trash was getting to me. We (me and the kids) literally filled a large garbage bad to the bursting point.

Plus, it’s disgusting garbage, cans and bottles filled with this awful liquid, which I know in certain instances is tobacco spit. We know this because we pour it out to make the load lighter and less offensive, though the process makes me want to yak.

Then, to rub salt in the wound, I even went so far as to sort the stuff out for recycling. How’s that for taking a bullet for the planet? Initially I thought, no way, just toss it all into the garbage and be done with it. I started feeling guilty, and decided to take it to the recycling center. We were going there anyway. My biggest worry was that the bag would tip over, spilling all those cans and bottles, as well as the disgusting liquid inside, all over our car.

We made it to the dump with no disasters, and then I rummaged through the bag and sorted cans and bottles. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, because we got rid of most of the liquid. I simply wore gloves and held my breath. Once it was over, I felt much better, and was happy to be done with it.

Of course, on the way home that afternoon, we saw that someone had tossed some more garbage on our road while we were gone. What’s the world coming to?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Tibor Fazakas for the pic.