What message are we sending tourists who see all this litter?

When I was very young, we had a little rhyme for this season: “Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is?”

Ignore the grammar. The anonymous rhymester clearly didn’t care as much about that as they did celebrating spring’s arrival.

I’m not a bird watcher by inclination, but I enjoy seeing the robins, juncos and goldfinches flitting about in the hedge. Once or twice now, we’ve been lucky to see nests after the birds have left, but generally, they are well hidden.

What I do not enjoy seeing is the flying garbage. Lately, I think there’s been more of that — lids, cups, masks, food wrappers, hats, mitts and other detritus — than any avian life forms.

I understand with our windy atmosphere that escapees from coats, cars, strollers, and bags are highly likely. I still recall one day when a particularly excessive gust blew the glasses off my husband’s face.

It happens. I will often chase after my lost belongings unless they lead me into the street. But bags, hats and mitts aside, why do people think our environment is their personal garbage pit?

Every year, we have regular clean-ups. Many have been coordinated by neighbourhood associations, Scouting groups, and schools. I remember one year when a good chunk of the Outer Ring Road was closed one weekend for a huge clean-up. Sadly, even that effort only lasted a week.

And that’s just what accumulates on roadways and medians. You can’t visit our beaches, parks, and wild spaces without seeing how they are polluted with flyaway garbage and deliberate dumping.

Because the reality is most of the garbage we see around us is deliberately put there. We can’t use the excuse of gulls in St. John’s since the advent of automated garbage pick up.

I have seen hundreds of pictures over the years of people’s travels. They show pristine expanses. It’s just not done to use a green space, park, sidewalk, roadside, or beach as place to dispose of your personal waste. I’ve been in a lot of places where smoking is still common, but I haven’t seen butts flying out of windows the way people do here.

The provincial government has launched a tourism campaign to encourage people to visit our province and spend their money in hopes of stimulating and investing in our economy.

I am not sure what message we will send back with those who visit. I am not even sure what message we give our kids when we do nothing to dispose of garbage more carefully.

I should note that not even indoor spaces were, until recently, completely free from garbage. It wasn’t until we had the pandemic and the requirement to wear masks indoors that people stopped eating and drinking inside shops. Talk to any retail worker, and they can tell you how often cups, some not entirely empty, were left on store shelves because people couldn’t be bothered to ask for a bin.

I would love to know why people think this is OK. I live within the vicinity of several schools and fast food places; spring and fall are exceptionally litter-prone. Maybe it’s the absence of garbage bins along trails; maybe it’s lack of manners.

One thing is absolutely clear: we have a trash problem and we need to deal with it.

We need creative solutions. Our tourism tagline this year is “if life should be anything, it should be nothing but fun.” You can have fun and also be responsible stewards of the environment. As the saying goes, once you know better, do better.