Persuasive Essay
Walking home from the corner store this past summer, my sister and I were in a deep conversation about our futures, we discussed how we want to move out of Detroit and go somewhere south, where the weather is better. In the middle of describing my fantasy home, I tripped on a 2 litter Faygo pop bottle in front of one of the many foreclosed homes on the block. Picking myself up from the ground, I begun to look around the street, I noticed all the trash along the curb, in the tall grass of lawns that hadn’t been cut for months, the field by the railroad tracks, and along the foreclosed homes on the block. There was furniture in the field, and general pop bottles and chips bags along the curb and abandoned homes. Just then, I realized how dirty the city of Detroit is.
The littering around Detroit is getting worse as months go by. The trash either falls into the storm drains or travels down the street with cars and buses, polluting the water and the rest of the city. Although the city does street sweeps every few months, it seems like the trash is just pushed to one area and never picked up. Making the city look worse then its reputation of crime and violence. The trash is not only a threat to the pollution, but to the safety of pedestrians. I could have fallen and gotten seriously injured if I was not able to catch my balance in time. The trash around Detroit should not threaten the life of pedestrians.
The affect of littering on the environment is critical, but it is just as important to the wildlife of animals and insects. Littering can be traced back to diseases from mosquitoes and the killing of wildlife. From the online encyclopedia Wikipedia “Open containers such as paper cups or beverage cans can hold rainwater, providing breeding locations for mosquitoes which have been known to cause diseases such as West Nile Virus and Malaria”. Also, “cigarette butts and filters, a threat to wildlife, have been found in the stomachs of fish, birds and whales, who have mistaken them for food” says Wikipedia. Littering doesn’t only affect humans, it affects everything around us, from the ground we walk on, the air we breathe, and the animals around us.
There are ways to help prevent or reduce the amount of trash around the neighborhood with the help from the people within it. If neighbors create clean up projects within the neighborhood to pick up the trash in the streets and around foreclosed and abandoned homes once a month, it would help to make the city a better place appearance wise. After a few months of the cleaning project, the results will compliment themselves. The trash will decrease and the amount of trash to be picked up each month may decrease as well because the other neighbors will see that people are trying to keep the city clean. The neighbors might not want to litter anymore or they might even join and pick up some trash themselves every now and then.
The cleaning project will be organized to meet every month. There will be several groups within the neighbors that have volunteered, to split up and go to different areas of the city such as Downtown, Southwest, and Southeast Detroit. The groups will be no more then 10 people, and they will travel through their specific area picking up trash from the curbs, and around homes with picks and garbage bags. For the larger pieces of trash, like furniture and other bulk materials, together the groups can rent a dumpster to throw them in. Detroit as a city needs to be cleaned, and with the help from the citizens within the city and neighbors that want to come together to help the city, Detroit could become a much better place.
Littering is an issue throughout the whole world. It’s something that a community, neighborhood, and the world can not get away from. It is an important matter in our lives and the lives of the animals around us today that needs to be addressed. Littering slowly affects our lives, and drastically affects the lives of animals. The importance of not littering is not stressed enough. With the increase of trash along the roads and around houses the danger of pollution and safety of the community increase as well. The awareness of this issue is necessary and without the issued being solved, not only the city of Detroit, but also the world will have a high pollution rate.
