Acton's Community Clean UP
On April 23rd and April 24th, Councillor Somerville, Councillor Albano, Councillor Hurst, and BIA Chair Dr. Dana Selby all took time out of their busy schedules to participate in the annual Community Clean UP. I had originally come out for the photo op, but seeing as those are 3 words I’m also passionate about, especially the “UP” part, I figured I’d stay and help out.
The Community Clean UP which often takes place on Earth Day, April 22nd, though the weather did not cooperate this year, is a day when the community comes together to do a spring cleaning of sorts for the town. We spent the days cleaning windows, sweeping streets, picking up garbage, and making Acton great again.
By the end of it, windows were sparkling, there was less garbage, and everyone could walk around with a bit more pride in their town.I also had a chance to take a break from the real work, to do some camera “work” and interview Councillor Albano, Councillor Somerville, and Dr. Dana Selby, BIA chair. (Video included directly under). “We can really make an impact on getting our downtown clean and springtime ready” said Dr. Selby.
Councillor Albano mentioned “This is a BIA initiative, we arranged to get together and make this happen” he went on to say “I do appreciate all the people that volunteered their time. So we’re out here just spending the afternoon, and sprucing up the town.” “So one of the important things is, a small thing like cleaning a window is not going to make a world of difference, but it just shows that little bit of pride when you pull in and see the dust is gone from it. We’ve had a long winter, and we’re all itching to be outside. So for us today to be able to come over here with the BIA chair and Councillor Albano who is the representative for the downtown merchants, I’m glad to be able to come out for an hour or so.” said Somerville.
I must say just one day later, although the windows were still sparkling and the streets looked nicer than before we began, it was disheartening to see there had already been cigarette butts littered on the sidewalk and side of the road where we had just cleaned the day before.
As a fellow smoker, I must say, put your freaking cigarette butts in the garbage. If there is no garbage close, oust your cigarette by squeezing off the cherry and empty the tobacco and put your butts in your pocket. Sure you will stink like an ashtray, but NEWS FLASH, if you are a smoker, you already smell to non-smokers.
While we may not be able to control how we smell as smokers, we can at least mitigate the impact we have on our environment, community, and future generations. According to longwood . edu "The 470 billion cigarettes smoked in the United States in 1998 translates to a total of 176,250,000 pounds of discarded butts in one year in the United States alone. The filters from 5.608 trillion cigarettes (approximate world production) would weigh more than 2.1 billion pounds. This figure does not include the weight of the tobacco still attached to the filter, or the packaging, matches, disposable lighters, and other "collateral" waste that is generated by smoking." While according to truthinitiative.org "Cigarettes make up more than one-third—nearly 38 percent—of all collected litter. Disposing of cigarettes on the ground or out of a car is so common that 75 percent of smokers report doing it." Councillor Somerville had even more to say about plastics mentioning “ So one of the very interesting things this weekend I was tweeting out, picking up from the Environment Minister, Minister Mckenna, about the Government of Canada looking into what we do about plastics, especially for the ocean” he went on to say “We really need to get our head around single use plastic, plastic straws, plastic bags, recycling containers, because people have an expectation that a recycling container from their favourite restaurant is going to be recyclable, and it may not be depending on the plastic even though it has that symbol. So I do hope people start paying attention to that because we need to get a handle on single-use plastic, whether it is a recycling bag that you have bought when you’ve been grocery shopping, whether its something from your favourite takeout restaurant, a plastic water bottle or plastic straws. So I hope people really provide feedback to their federal government because municipally we can’t ban them, If it was up to me, I’d ban them.”
Commenti