When it's summer here, for the two, maybe three months of the year, many folks flock outdoors, get active, go camping and become one with nature again. But for nature's sake and the planet's long-term health, please have the common courtesy to clean up after yourselves.
What once seemed a ubiquitous concept has perhaps been lost on some of us – or worse yet, was never there to begin with.
It's simple one: pack out what you pack in.
When camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, working, playing on the beach, exploring the wilderness, or just doing anything outdoors during summer's brief appearance, take out the trash you brought in and dispose of or recycle it appropriately.
Human waste should not be along trails, riverbanks, or on beaches. But we've all seen it. Somehow it got there, and probably not on its own.
Just last week, April Whitford posted to the Nouvelle's Facebook, making a public plea to respect the Beaver River and not leave garbage and other pollution just strewn about.
“While driving to work in the morning, I go over the bridge on Lessard Road and I am disgusted!” she wrote. “Tubers who have enjoyed the river, (then) discard their tubes, garbage, and empties all at the bridge, just in the bushes. Or often, just let wrecked tubes keep floating down the river. Do you know that this has a profound effect on the river and the wildlife that call it home? Please clean up after yourselves. You've enjoyed the river now show some respect, take your garbage home.”
The Nouvelle staff has also written about the pollution problem at stops along the Beaver River, a watercourse that covers two provinces, eventually joins the Churchill River and flows into the Hudson Bay – profound effect indeed.
There are so many people right here in the Lakeland working hard to protect our watersheds and ecosystems, and yet a careless few can ruin things for us all.
Please don't be one of those people who don't care about the land we live on, the air we breathe, the water we drink or the food we eat.
It's still summer for a little longer. Let's take care out there and have some fun, but don't forget to pack out what you pack in.
