My good deed for the day

While taking my regular morning walk to the station, my eye catches a piece of rubbish. The same story every single day, come rain or shine. It really annoys me. If there was snow to cover it, it would be better - out of sight, out of mind. I find myself wondering who on earth may have been so inconsiderate to litter right next to where the rubbish bin stands. The extra effort to pop it in would be minimal.

However, I do understand that there are no municipal cleaning operations which could possibly have enough time to tidy up the entire city every day, or even once a week. And as a matter of fact, there is no point in putting aside enough tax payers' money for them to be able to do so, anyway.

The ultimate reasons for increased littering belong to the Ask Judy- column, but I doubt that it is only a matter of my aging that littering has started to peeve me to this degree.

When I stand at the bus stop and watch a mother aiming into the rubbish bin, missing it and leaving the piece of rubbish lying around on the ground I lo longer wonder where this woman's children learn their atrocious, messy habits from. And there we go, the rest of us find ourselves picking up empty pizza boxes and beer bottles after these very children.

But there is a better option. Instead of glancing at that irritating piece of rubbish every morning on my way to work, I can easily stop, bend down, and pick it up. After all, the rubbish bin is right there, easily accessible. This will definitely give me a feeling much better than the every-day wondering, what kind of an idiot dropped it there in the first place.

The idea of picking up a piece of litter every day was born in 2000, when journalist Tuula-Maria Ahonen together with her two daughters Iisa and Ilona got the idea of tidying up their every-day life by establishing the Litter Movement.

This year Ahonen was acknowledged for her initiative by an invitation to the Finland's Independence Day Reception at the Presidential Palace on December 6^th. This is truly a great honor.

Ahonen very reasonably challenges the idea of consuming the tax payers' money on picking up rubbish from perfectly healthy, reasonable people, when at the same time healthcare for children, sick and elderly is being cut back. Even those who pay dog tax deserve a clean environment for their precious fluff balls.

It is definitely worth reading more about the Finnish Litter Movement, which can be found also in English at www.roskapaivassa.net , or join the happy litter-picking community at Facebook.

I truly hope that one messy idiot does not litter more than ten wise men possibly manage to pick up every day.