For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 08, 2012

Sadly, the trash far outnumbers the natural stuff.

Yep now when I go to the beach there is trash every where and hardly any pretty,rare,or odd shells/stones.

The funny thing is, the kids are having so much fun picking up trash that they don’t realize that they are doing something useful. Reminds me of the time my father first started “letting me” cut the grass. Pushing that power mower over the lawn? Great fun!

The same people who litter the beautiful beaches also litter the grass along sidewalks, bus benches and shopping malls. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn their living rooms are also decorated as beautifully.

We’ve gotta have the most interesting ‘trash’, here in Oregon. It’s all from Japan. ;)

Whenever I hear complaints about how much more polluted things are now, I think of a guy I used to work with back in the 90s. He’d been born in the 20s and he’d tell me about swimming in a river, growing up, where he’d have to duck raw sewage as it came down the current. Sometimes, he’d get a nasty rash from swimming.

Things are actually much better than they used to be on the pollution front. Not perfect but not London Smog-levels, either. And yet, look at all the morons who want to roll back those regulations and return to the “good old days”.

I travel to work using a lovely rural lane. Its a picture but in the past two weeks I have seen some lowlife has,at various times, dumped a large load of household and building damage plus an old mattress, further down the lane a set of old chairs plus rubbish that could actually have been burned on a garden bonfire. These were cleared up. This last week soneone has dumped another mattress. These scum come in the dark and as its a lonely area, nobody ever sees them. A sad reflection on the British neanderthal.

That is good to hear. I once helped clean up a beach near my home. i spent most of the time in an area the size of my living room and filled up a large trash bag with nothing but cigarette butts. Why don’t they make those things biodegradable?

My hubby told me long before I ever knew of him when he was a kid, a father and son threw glass pop bottles in a lake just to see them break glass all over, they never considered who would get cut walking in that lake. FBFW speaks volumn’s on how piggish people are.

And you know something? It is amazing – I mean truly, absolutely amazing – how cigarette smoke carries on a beach. It travels and spreads for many yards, worse than indoors. I’ve seen and smelt it on the beach. Unbelievable, but true.

But if we all picked up trash then maybe we could get the beaches clean again.

Never mind the beach. Every time I have to mow the lawn, I need to walk the front yard and pick up all the trash people throw from their cars. And we live on a side street.

In Mad Men, I think season two, they went on a family picnic in a park. Don threw his beer can out into the grass, then his wife, when they were ready to leave, shook the blanket with ALL the trash out into the grass and left. .Back in the 60’s, this was not all that uncommon.

I was at Daytona Beach,Florida back in ‘76 with my Sr.class from the Christian School I attended. That beach was so unspoiled. No litter was anywhere. I found many pretty shells to take home as souverniers. I hope it’s still pollution free now. Does anyone know?

People are slobs.

I’m just glad there were no hypodermic needles around — remember THAT horror from about 25 years ago?

Come to the Oregon Beaches, we clean them up.

I love that. I will be going to WI Dells for the first time since I was a teen and would love to walk the trails up in the sandstone hills, but my BF said they are probably “developed” into something else. I have assited in cleanups in my neighborhood but the only beaches I regularly visited were in my younger days (N shore of L Michigan) and now in AZ -none.

Makes one wonder: How many times someone’s gradkid was taken to an Emergency Room after stepping on a broken soda bottle – and being totally unaware it was the bottle they threw away 30 years earlier?

Living in the country, we were plagued by city folk that thought our road ditches were for discarding trash.Dad went through one and found a discarded presciption bottle.When the owner was confronted, merely said that she left trash disposal to a friend.

Thye problem was once so bad that the township road commish. put a notice in the local paper that anyone caught throwing trash into the road ditches would be SHOT!

Trivia Question:In a full slate election, who is the most important person you vote for?

Trivia answer:It’s the township road commissioner – because he is the one who decides whose roads get plowed out first after a snowstorm.

A few weeks ago, we took our 2 boys for a walk on a local beach. Our 2 boy scouts got a merit badge for being about to name over 6 different types of shells, 2 jellyfish, and 4 different types of seaweed. Then I walked away while dad was giving the talk about what the raccoon was looking for under the rocks… and hearing the gagging from da boys as they “got” what Mr. Raccoon was happily chomping on, espicially after dad helped them tip a rock.