City is a mess

Talk about it

Yep, you read the headline right and I don’t plan to back down, though I am prepared to take some heat for that statement.

However, I challenge anyone to walk around a Dickinson (or neighboring community) block without seeing trash. There are pop bottles and cans and chip bags and pizza boxes and cigarette packages and grocery bags and newspapers and small car parts and fast food waste and sometimes stinky socks and often things you don’t want to touch because you don’t know what they are.

Sure, the vicious wind may have picked some of these items out of unsuspecting open car windows or open trash bins and placed them where they now rest, but there are likely littering culprits out there.

And now that the pure white snow has melted, all of this filth has made an appearance. The grass and shrubbery has yet to grow, so it can’t be hidden.

It’s too bad some people can’t wait until they get home, or to any trash bin located outside of numerous businesses, to dispose of their refuse.

The Earth Day lecture has been overdone so I’ll stay away from that (though Earth Day is Wednesday).

So what do we want to do about all of this junk making our city unsightly in areas? No one could possibly clean up the entire city but a piece here and there can’t hurt. And feel free to give dirty looks to those you see disposing of their rubbish anywhere they see fit. Otherwise, see debris — pick it up.

It’s not hard, and if you don’t have a bag to do so in, odds are you can find one on the side of the road amongst the other garbage.

— Dickinson Press Managing Editor Jennifer McBride has thrown a banana peel or two out the window but the bag of crud she collected this morning should make up for it. E-mail her at jmcbride@thedickinsonpress.com.

Tags: jennifer, mcbride, dickinson, opinion, editorial, column