I’m sitting in a public service vehicle practically minding my own business. The person sitting next to me asks me to open the window and throw a plastic bottle and paper bag outside the moving vehicle. Mind you, the surroundings  were actually clean,very clean in fact, as it was the boundary of a national park (Hell’s Gate National Park). I ended up doing the unexpected, in my opinion  , opening the window and with my own bare hands throwing the waste outside. Seconds after that act , I realized what I had done, I practically physically stressed  the environment by disposing litter, plastic to be exact, that will decompose in 100 years. I might have endangered an animals healthy life.  Was I distracted? Why did I do it? I still had my waste in the bag, so why did I throw someones else’s trash?

Before been asked to throw the trash, I was busy reading ‘Unbowed by Wangari Maathai’,  great book by the way. Sometimes I tend to think I was been tested because the book talks about environmental conservation in planting trees and disposing of waste properly majorly. It was as though the person sitting next to me wanted to see if I do walk the talk. I’m I been paranoid?

Does the society really understand  the impact we do to the environment when we dispose of waste in the wrong way?

Yes, we are always advised to practice the three R’s [Recycle, Reuse, Reduce]. Company’s go out of their way with recycling signs on each product, but do we follow them even if not entirely?

We live in a society that will litter anywhere saying it’s not there work and that others, The Town council, are paid to do it. Is this really necessary. I mean, everyone must be responsible for their own waste, right? The council will still get paid to empty the trash cans daily anyway. 

If everyone throws one plastic bottle anywhere in a town of about half a million people, how would the town look like compared to  a town with the same population disposing the bottle in designated waste bins, or better yet, a town with the same population which practices the use of reusable bottles hence reducing the amount of waste that is disposed into the environment. 

Let us be manageable and responsible for our own waste. Let us appreciate green technology and reduce the amount of plastic we dispose of to the environment. The impact may not hurt us now, but it will affect the future generations to come and destroy the habitat we now know.