A Clean Community

East Tennessee is one of the most beautiful areas in our country, and our city of Seymour is no exception. However, it has become apparent that there is a growing trash problem. Strewn about various locations in the community there is an abundance of cans, wrappers, bottles, and other carelessly discarded items. It is essential that more emphasis be placed on recycling; furthermore, regular community clean up days should be scheduled. Awareness about the litter in our community needs to be raised in order to sustain the beauty of our city and the health of our environment.

Not only does recycling decrease the amount of garbage in landfills, but it also preserves our resources. Most of the classrooms at our school have boxes for paper and plastic recyclables. Unfortunately, many students do not use these. It is the teacher’s responsibility to let his or her students know where the recycle boxes are located in the classroom, but often this information is left out. Teachers should make sure their students are aware of the importance of making good use of the designated recycling bins. On the other hand, some students or faculty might be opposed to this idea because it may seem inconvenient to either pay or find someone to volunteer to take the school’s recyclables to the county recycle bins. Still, it is a sacrifice that must be made, and many students would be willing to volunteer to take out the recyclables. By not recycling we are teaching later generations to pollute our earth and waste our resources.

An equally important aspect of this proposal is the idea of scheduled community clean up days. Seymour’s youth should come together with the common goal of bettering our town. For a few hours every other Saturday, local teens could collect trash from our roads, parking lots, and lawns. Litter is an increasing problem, and too many people are not aware of just how harmful it is to our environment when they toss a piece of trash out the window of their car. Clean up days would help keep this problem under control.  Many teenagers will object to the thought of giving up part of their weekend for community service. However, keeping Seymour clean is necessary. Also, it would give high school seniors who participate the opportunity to accumulate volunteer hours to put on college applications. So, while students would be giving up some of their free time, not only would they benefit, but our city would be greatly improved.

Trash pollution is not only harmful to our community’s beauty, but it could also have lasting effects on our environment’s health. When we put our trash in regular garbage cans rather than recycle bins that trash goes to landfills. Putting garbage in the ground ruins our soil; therefore we eliminate the chance for future plant growth in that area. Recycling would keep a lot of that trash out of the landfills. No on wants to see trash lying around all over the place. It is not appealing to anyone, so litter needs to be kept off our streets. Keeping Seymour clean would also be beneficial to our tourist industry. Are people not drawn to beautiful, clean places? In making our citizens more aware of the problems that trash can cause in our town, we will insure Seymour’s beauty and our land’s health for years to come.