sneha2014
Registered: August 2013
City/Town/Province: Summit
Posts: 1
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Home sweet home. Whether it’s for a squirrel living in the gathering of trees next to your house or a family of four in a suburban neighborhood, a home is a home. Everyone yearns for a clean neighborhood. Every morning when I go out for a run, I pass under a bridge and never took notice to the pieces of trash buried into the dirt. But one day, thump, thump, thump, stumble. I ended up tripping over a can of Pepsi that was half underneath the ground. After trying to save myself from landing in the dirt, I saw the numerous pieces of trash underneath the bridge. I thought to myself, ugh dumb can. Someone should clear this up. Then I realized why not make it happen myself?
Summit is a nice, neat suburban town in New Jersey not too far from the bustling New York City. As nice and neat a suburban town may seem, it goes without saying that there’s bound to be random pieces of trash lying near a bridge or around the woods. I didn’t have to go far to start cleaning up the neighborhood I live in.
Within a quarter of a mile from my house, there’s a bridge where the NJ Transit train passes through every once an hour next to a woods-like area called Passaic River Park. Underneath the bridge, numerous empty crushed cans of beer lay buried into the dirt and other pieces of trash made of cardboard that previously held drinks of any sort. In addition, there were plastic bags in the soil surrounding the bridge. All of these pieces of trash (except the cardboard) are harmful to the environment and the animals living in it. A squirrel could easily scurry over to something shiny in the dirt and possibly cut itself on the opening of a can. Another possible hazard to the environment is plastic, which takes a plethora of years to degrade and its small particles pollute soil and water. The pollution in the ground eventually harms the animals living in that where the plastic has degraded.
Just picking up the trash in the small area under the bridge next to a woods-like area filled up an entire trash bag. Going to another part of the bridge in the next street over compiled another bag of trash. By picking up trash underneath a few bridges in Summit amounted to five bags of trash. This project may not seem too big compared to other projects such as planting flowers in a community garden or other bigger ecological efforts, however, contributing to the cleanliness of our environment, whether it’s big or small, can make a difference. This experience of cleaning up areas near the woods has made me realize the amount of trash that can go unseen in a community. Adding an extra pair of hands to the environmental club in school could really make a difference, in my life and in the environment.
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