Texan Mosaic

by DARIELLA HERNANDEZ/Editorial Assistant

Littering doesn’t only cause harm to the environment, it also causes harm to everybody living in it.

Littering awareness was always a popular subject when I was growing up. Today, it seems as if nobody makes the extra effort to get the word out or to stop littering.

When I was in elementary school, my school would host events about recycling, littering, and working toward a better environment.

Thanks to those events and hands-on activities, I learned how bad people have been hurting the environment without even noticing.

A couple of days ago, as I was walking to class, I noticed a bird on the ground picking at a foreign object. The bird seemed to be having a hard time, so I carefully approached it.

As I got closer to the bird, I noticed it was trying to eat some gum left on the ground, but it was choking on it. Once I tried to take the gum away, the bird flew away but collapsed just seconds after taking off.

The bird was just going on with its day and was attracted to the gum left by someone who was too lazy to throw his or her gum out. I’m sure the person who just threw the gum away didn’t know that it would potentially harm an innocent living creature- but it did. And that is where the lack of littering awareness comes in.

If high schools, colleges, and universities focused more on getting the word out about our environment and the dangers it’s facing, this problem wouldn’t be so big.

Instead, students are left to find out on their own.  Honestly, what college student will actually take time out of his or her day to research something he or she’s not well educated on? I think that bringing awareness to campuses will cause many students to have a reality check about what is really going on with the environment.

I don’t see much trash on campus, which is a good thing. I do realize that there are not many recycling bins available for the students to discard their water, juice, and soda bottles. Because of the lack of recycling bins around, students and faculty naturally reach for the regular trash bins to discard their perfectly recyclable bottles.

Littering doesn’t only apply to throwing trash on the ground. It applies to trash being discarded the wrong way as well. If we had more recycling bins, it would be easier to stop littering, because the medium would be right in front of us.

If we stop taking littering so lightly, we can all make a change in the world. Our campus will be more beautiful, wildlife will remain helping out the ecosystems without any bother, and we will pass on littering awareness to generations to come.