In the early 1970s, for those of us who were around back then, there was a commercial put out by the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign. The star of the commercial was Iron Eyes Cody also known as “The Crying Indian.” If you type: "Crying Indian” into the YouTube.com search bar, you can view the commercial online.
The scenario went something like this. Iron Eyes Cody is riding his horse through a pristine area of CA that has been cleaned up of all litter and pollution. By the end of the commercial, he is now riding through trash dumped on the side of the road and in the river. As they end the commercial, the announcer says that there is still a lot to do to clean up America.
Funny, that was in the 1970s and we STILL have a lot to do. As I was traveling this past week, I watched as someone in a car in front of me threw a bag out their window onto the side of the highway. I couldn’t help but think of Iron Eyes Cody. In this day and age where it is so easy to do most things that were not quite as easy 40 years ago, why do people do this?
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Is it because they don’t care? Maybe they think “Hey we are giving someone a job. I mean someone has to go out and clean that all up – right?” Do they just not get that this earth that we live in is finite. That there is only so much space to put people, stuff and everything else?
When I was a kid, my mother always told me my bedroom “looked like a cyclone hit it!” I was always just dropping everything everywhere (I have cleaned up my act since then!) But not outside. For some reason unknown to me, that was a more sacred place and I didn’t dare drop a lunch bag out the window of my car. Maybe it was the impression old Iron Eyes put on me so many years ago.
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It’s not that hard. Put a bag in your car for trash. When you go to the gas station to fill up (which most of us do at least once a week) you can empty your bag in the gas stations trash bin. (Please recycle your bottles and cans though. We are still working on getting recycle bins at the gas stations!)
Small steps go a long way.
April 22 is Earth Day. What a great month to start a new habit of disposing of your trash properly so we can all Keep America Beautiful.
