Walking through the trails of the Adirondack mountains allows those on the trails to admire the beauty of the wilderness in its natural state. The sights can be breath taking. This is in vivid contrast to the sights that most of us see walking down our streets or driving to the store. I was on my daily 30 minute jog through my neighborhood and I couldn't help notice all of the trash and litter that lined many of the streets. Highway 81 heading to Cortland from Syracuse and back, a trip I make at least 4 times a week, is just as bad if not worse. I often see everything from cigarette butts to shreds of tires from large trucks on the side of the road. Most of us pass it off as normal and this is partly why the problem has progressed over the years. Some of us are even guilty of contributing to the problem by throwing stuff out the window as we drive or dropping stuff as we walk and not picking it up. Raising awareness is the first step in fighting this problem and following principles such as the 7 set by an organization know as Leave No Trace can be applied to our home environments not just the wilderness. 
Leave No trace is an organization that looks to educate people about the outdoors and teach them about preserving the natural beauty of the outdoors and lessen the impact that they may leave while enjoying the outdoors. Leave No Trace offers seven principles to follow to help their mission to be successful. They are:
1. Plan Ahead and Prepare
2. Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
3. Dispose of Waste Properly
4. Leave What You Find
5. Minimize Campfire Impacts
6. Respect Wildlife
7. Be Considerate of Other Visitors
Following these seven principles can greatly reduce the impacts that we make on nature and can help to preserve the beauty of the wilderness. Many of these same principle can be applied to daily life to help reduce the impacts that we leave in our home environments and thus reduce pollution and create a healthier, cleaner environments for all of us, and our children, to enjoy. Enjoy the earth, and help her stay clean.
That was a post than I've become familiar with seeing in your blog. Nevertheless, it was informative. I vaguely remember a study done about Onondaga Lake and the pollution in the winter -vs- summer. Supposedly, it was worse during the winter because people put more than a cigarette butt or wrapper; they were throwing tires, full trashbags of debris, etc...Considering it's winter 9 months out the year in Syracuse, it's damaging and really sad. By the way, I miss your quotes!
ReplyDeleteI live in Western New York, near the Fingerlakes and I am surrounded by perfect gorgeous hiking hills. Whenever I do go hiking I always follow these practices. Last summer I went to the adirondacks and hiked up one of the mountains when we reached the top we had lunch and we made sure to take all of our belongings including the garbage. I was just wondering if you had ever heard about geocashing? I have found a couple of geocashes and it was a fun experience!
ReplyDeleteMy brother actually works at Tanglewood Nature Center near my house, well he used to sorry about that. But, he cleaned out where old trails used to be and redid the trails with steps using rocks and removed all the underbrush and now a ton of people love going there and there are new trails to explore. I really think it is important to keep the environment clean, hell we want exercise and to be healthy but most people arent even trying to help the environment. How can you help yourself if you cant help the world you live in?
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