Cigarettes. The most littered item worldwide. Somewhere around 2 billion cigarettes are littered daily. In regards to my efforts cleaning up the most littered item in the world... some may say, "Why even bother??" or "What's the point??"
The other day, I was reading my friend Harry's blog "The Flotsam Diaries". If you haven't checked out what he's been up to in Maine... you MUST!! :) In his post "Hope, Despair, and that Strange Place In-Between" he sums up quite perfectly why he keeps doing what he does... cleaning beaches even though really there is no end in sight. He writes:
"So I do what I do because I love my daughter and I think the world is beautiful and I want to preserve it..."
... 'Hoping' puts the burden on someone else. "Doing" puts the burden -- the control -- in my own hands. So no, I can't change the world. But I can change my part of it. And no, I can't make it better forever. But I can make it better for today. This one moment when the beach is deserted and the gulls are crying and the surf is pounding and the breeze is carrying salt on the air... and the sand is clean.
And it just might stay clean long enough for the next lonely wanderer to look down. And notice.
Sometimes, the point isn't to do the right thing because you hope or think something awesome will come from it. It's because, it's the right thing...."
20 minutes on December 16, 2011 at Access 36
Cigarette butts: 95
Total amount of cigarette butts removed from Wrightsville Beach, NC in 108 days:
36,611
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