Personal Narrative: Playing With Food

I have lived in my neighborhood for almost eight years. Never have I thought about the amount of trash that filled every corner of the dirt road leading down to my house until recently when one of the trash debris slapped me right in the face—literally. What’s more surprising is that there were kids playing alongside these molded cheeseburgers and rotten newspapers.

Immediately, I told myself something needed to be done because I certainly wouldn’t want my kids 10-20 years from now to be playing with trash. My solution was simple, yet effective.

First, I went to the local grocery store and bought several trash bags, gloves, and an EZ Reacher tool. Then, I—along with my father and sister—went to the areas where I saw a plethora of trash and

picked up as many papers, McDonald wrappers, and molded cheeseburgers as I could. After cleaning the road, I went back to the house, hopped in my bicycle, and inspected every area of the neighborhood for any trash that I missed. At the end of the day, I could finally call the neighborhood my home.

The next day, I spent several hours researching statistics and making posters to thwart others in my neighborhood from throwing trash. I personally enjoyed making these guerilla marketing posters and also saw it as a great opportunity to gain real-life experience useful to my future endeavors in the business/marketing realm.

Overall, I collected approximately 90 pounds of trash, employed nine trash bags, and worked over seven hours, and covered one mile of dirt road.

When people run initiatives to prevent litter, they tend to ONLY clean the specific area and stop. However, my initiative involves a second part: cleaning while helping others see the problems that could arise if the littering continues. As such, if more people were alerted about the second-part, there could truly be a difference in the amount of trash laying around.