2023-04-19 13:12:00
There was a time when I organized a cleaning day for the residents’ association. That happened in more neighborhoods, and always in April. Spring evokes cleaning tendencies in people. The municipality took over these initiatives under the name Spring fever and provided so many garbage bags, grab sticks, caps and even vests that I wondered whether all that material was worth the rubbish we fished from roadsides, bushes and ditches.
Recently I took a walk and when I go into nature, I often take some rubbish with me. On the way back I collected the cans that predate the deposit, the chip bags, drink packs, cigarette boxes, weed bags, nitrous oxide ampoules, coffee cups and pieces of plastic, all in a found plastic bag, which I threw in the garbage can at home.
Under a bush lay a sheet of paper folded twice, gleaming white. I reached under the branches with a straight arm and was just able to reach the paper. It was a little damp but not yet smeared with mud, mouse pee or dog poop.
Broken plastic
It amazes me every time how much rubbish I come across. It is usually too much to carry around. I find garbage even in the most remote forests. And in the urban green around here, where I visit weekly or even daily, there is always something new. A bucket, jerry can, punctured ball or broken plastic.
It is mowed very often. If only half of the mowing time was spent on cleaning up waste… Now the waste is shredded: step 1 on the way to plastic continents in the oceans and to microplastics in breast milk.
Monkeys also leave their waste lying around: kernels, shells, nut shells. With cores it is fine to play the monkey, but otherwise…
But just that paper. I fished it up between two fingertips and unfolded it. It turned out to be a call to participate in the annual neighborhood cleaning Spring tickles.
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes regarding something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
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