Dear Editor,
A week ago, while turning into my driveway, I saw an empty potato chip bag on the parapet in front of my house. I parked my car and went to pick it up. A driver for a local company who was standing nearby, said he saw a woman discard it as she walked past. He told her it was wrong to litter but she ignored him and continued walking.
Editor, for the past 6 years, almost every Sunday, armed with a bucket and gloves, I go up and down my block and beyond, picking up trash left behind by uncaring citizens. I even have to go into the gutters to pick up trash.
With many businesses opening up in my area, it is dismaying to see how people are carelessly littering our environment with everything from discarded food containers to drink bottles, without a thought for where these things would end up. In front of one business, I found plastic toothpicks; clients and customers are less likely to want to patronize businesses with unsightly and unsanitary garbage in their vicinity.
Guests staying at my place say they feel safe walking on our block because it is not littered with garbage. People passing in cars have told me that I was doing a good job and that our Minister of Local Government, Priya Manickchand would be proud of me. Others commented that I should run for Mayor, and one person even asked what religion I belonged to, suggesting perhaps, that they would expect such community-minded commitment to come from a woman of faith.
I am a volunteer with the Seawalls and Beyond civic-minded group. In the past I have been involved in the President’s city cleanup campaigns including the Botanical Gardens cleanup effort. I have been involved in the Sherod Duncan’s campaign in 2015 and the school seawall campaigns, but there is only so much one person can do. Government also cannot do it alone. We all have to be involved, citizens must speak up when we see people littering, and we must go outside of our comfort zones if necessary, if we are to create a cleaner, and therefore healthier, Guyana.
We have a beautiful country, let’s keep it clean!