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Keep your litter and can it

By Katie Nichols (Contact) | Selma Times-Journal

Published Sunday, November 1, 2009

Bringing more tourists to Selma is one thing that everyone agrees needs to happen. Tourism and new businesses will help make this community thrive once again.

Creating parks, walking trails, bike trails and whatever else that maybe on the table will certainly help in that endeavor, but there is something that Selma citizens can do themselves and it costs absolutely nothing.

The magical solution is easy. Don’t litter.

Nothing makes a city look trashy like trash on the ground. Makes sense, right?

I can’t count how many times I’ve been driving behind a person with a 27 tag only to be showered with fast food wrappers, cellophane, cans, cups, etc.

I really don’t know where these litterers think their trash goes. Surely they must know their mother isn’t there to pick up behind them.

The trash left on streets and roadways is an eyesore plain and simple. Littering shows disrespect to people who live near where you throw out your trash and it is rude to every other citizen who picks up their trash like a good citizen.

Small children know not to litter, so why then do some grown men and women not understand the message?

In other countries it is in their culture to throw trash where it may, but as far as I can tell no one in Selma was raised under such teaching. Maybe I’m wrong, but most people go through the same speech in schools here where the teacher says “Put your trash in the garbage can, not on the floor.”

I clearly remember sitting in Mrs. Jenkins’ first-grade class and someone missed the trashcan. Mrs. Jenkins told the student to come back and pick up the Kleenex because it was his and no one else should have to pick up after him.

After that we all knew to pick up after ourselves because what Mrs. Jenkins said was what happened.

Parks and trails would be nice, but not if they are covered in garbage. A bike trail isn’t so pretty covered in bottles nor is a park beautiful if paper is rolling around the grounds.

So if you are in a car and someone rolls down the window to litter, let them know you don’t appreciate it.

A clean Selma will always be better than a litter-filled Selma.

Katie Nichols is the public safety reporter for the Times-Journal. She can be contacted at 410-1716 or katie.nichols@selmatimesjournal.com.

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