I am not sure who's photo it is, nor where it is taken, or even if it is an original or been touched up. What I do know is that this is not okay. We need to start taking ....pride? ownership? ....of our world. Neither of those words convey quite the concept that I want. Ah yes, we need to start treating the world as if it was our own yard. Not many people throw their trash onto their own lawn. Yet people just throw or leave trash lying around public property all the time. Just this afternoon I picked up someone's juice bottle and recycled it for them. Now perhaps it was dropped accidentally on a mad rush to get on the train. I'd like to give'em the benefit of the doubt. I have a hard time believing that every piece of garbage I see lying around on a daily basis has a history like that though...
It is so interesting, this concept of public property. On one hand there is this diffusion of responsibilty / "someone gets paid to clean this" attitude. (This pisses me off to no end, gah pick up your crap!). But then on the other hand there is this "I'm using this space, it is mine" phenomenon (do do bah dobah). So if it is "your" space to use....why is it up to someone else to clean? I am not sure how those things work together but both have been studied and shown to be legitimate. Hmmm. It is worth investigating. Sometimes these things just come to me.
I am off to a new city tomorrow (Adelaide). I am excited to see the differences (if there are any) to the use of plastic in every day life. We shall see...
Thought-provoking commentary! I, too, do not know if this photo is "legitimate" or not but agree with you, it serves as a reminder that we have a collective individual responsibility to "clean up" and not contribute to the global "mess", that there a corporate responsibility to face the moral dilemma: profit vs. world health/wellness (and make the "right" decision) AND that environmental issues will only "worsen". without both.
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