I used to live in a beautiful countryside. Now I live in a
rubbish heap. It’s an enormous rubbish heap. And I’m right bang in the middle
of it; or so it seems. And I find it very depressing indeed.
And in the middle of that huge rubbish heap I have my own very
small piece of land. Well I say it is my own, but in fact I have borrowed it
and my tenure is insecure. One day it is highly likely that others will try to
take it over and build dens on it to live in, pushing me off my plot. I won’t
like that. I’m a bit of a loner actually, and I’m very happy spending many
hours alone on that plot, from which nature provides me with most of my food
needs: leaves, shoots, flowers, fruit, seeds and so on. I particularly love the
wild strawberries that appear in abundance on my plot each summer. They are
sweet and delicious, although fiddly to pluck! I love the warmth of the sun on
my back, the soft breeze on my face, the sound of birds singing overhead, the
sight of fellow creatures in the distance enjoying just being, on their own
pieces of land, along with the rabbits, the pheasants, the mice and the
occasional deer.
I say I’m a loner, but once I leave my plot to go back into
the wider world around me, I have to join hundreds and thousands of my fellow
creatures, as they all hurry and scurry to and fro, often in purposeful
straight lines, on specially made tracks, and always, it seems in a rush to be
somewhere else!! And these creatures are enveloped in what seem like tough
metallic carapaces, of many different colours, shapes and sizes. Actually their
shells are not always that tough as they can crumple very badly when they hit
others at speed. But many don’t seem to realise that, or even care, judging by
the careless way they travel around!
It fascinates me that these creatures need to graze
continually. So they often feel the need on their journeys to stop off at food
distribution points that they have created for their own convenience across the
countryside, some small, others very large indeed, where they can refuel with things
to eat and drink. Such food bears little similarity with what I grow and eat. And
the liquids they consume are very unlike the natural water that is available
for me to drink, that comes out of the heavens above, pure and clean and fresh
and healthy. For a start their food and drink is often full of strange
chemicals, which may even be poisonous. Who knows? And it usually comes wrapped
in tough materials that do not rot down like the vegetative waste on my own
little plot. And these creatures are in such a hurry to carry on with their
journey, in such a rush to get to somewhere else, that they often take the
wrapped food and drink with them into a storage space within their carapaces, so
that they can graze as they travel along. This seems dangerous to me. How can
they do so many things at once? The worst thing is that when they have finished
eating and drinking, these creatures don’t want to keep any rubbish within
their shell, so they throw the remains of their feast, the wrappings, out of
the shell as they journey along. There are special openings in the sides of the
shell which they can open and shut for this purpose. And since those bits and
pieces don’t rot down, there they stay, all along the sides of those routes
across the countryside; cans, plastic and glass bottles, cardboard and plastic
cups, plastic sandwich wrappers, sweet wrappers, cigarette packets, and so on.
And that is why I have to live in the middle of a rubbish
heap. And I find it very depressing indeed.
This is the result of one litter pick on one day along a short stretch of the A25 in Surrey.
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