Clean Planet Day Reflection
North Kingstown, RI
You’d never know what lies hidden just beyond the grass, past the plants that hug the ground close, dissolving into the dense foliage of the forest. Just a few hundred yards from here, you’ll find perfectly manicured lawns, plentiful gardens, and flowers that beckon to butterflies and hummingbirds. And there’s little to no trash anywhere to be seen.
My parents live in a Rhode Island neighborhood separated from a main road by a stretch of woods - pines, oaks, and elms that boast shades of green in summer. These woods are home to squirrel and rabbit, fox, and deer, Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, Chickadee, and much more.
When I set out from mom and dad’s home for our Clean Planet Day July trash cleanup, I wondered how in the world I was going to fill a large trash bag in what seemed to be such a clean neighborhood. It quickly became clear that it wouldn’t be so hard.
I wonder what all of these beings who call these woods home would say to us if we spoke the same language? For I found the floor of where they eat, sleep, and seek shelter littered with plastic water bottles, cigarette butts, beer cans, candy wrappers, chip bags, and an automobile tire.
As I picked these items up, the irony began to sink in: such a pristine, clean neighborhood just down the street, where someone wouldn’t dare be caught throwing trash in someone’s yard. Who would want to endure that embarrassment?
But for some reason, when no one’s watching, with just the Cardinals, rabbits, and Chickadees as witnesses, that’s when the beer can, water bottle, and food wrappers fly from hand to nature.
This is no indictment of North Kingstown or Rhode Island. In five years of Clean Planet cleanups across the United States, and throughout Latin America, it’s a similar story - we find trash in nature everywhere.
Healing Disconnection
If you’re reading this, I doubt you throw trash out of your car window, or simply drop your food or drink container on the ground when you’re done using it. So why write this, if it’s not you who is the source of the problem?
Despite my frustration as I waded into the woods on that hot and sticky day, I was reminded of something. What I was seeing is evidence of being being disconnected from nature. It’s not hard to find other find other examples of this in our world today. Yet what inspires me is my belief that what is disconnected can be reconnected.
We seem to have simply forgotten that like the great vine winding up a tree trunk, our lives are tightly interwoven with nature.
Seattle, a Suquamaish Native American Chief, said in 1854 that:
“The earth does not belong to man,
man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.
Man did not weave the web of life,
he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
With education, change is possible. With presence and understanding, awareness grows. Yes, even for the presently ignorant among us.
What You Can Do
We certainly can’t force people to act differently. We could try, but force, or shaming someone, isn’t a sustainable strategy. Instead we must look at what we can do to heal this disconnection, first within ourselves, in our families, in our communities. We are powerful beyond measure - we just often forget this.
What could you do to heal the modern human illusion that we are somehow separate from nature? What does the old-soul memory that you are deeply connected to nature feel like? How would that shape your actions, your words, going forward? Please drop us a line and let us know. We are all in this together. Andy Bayon
Clean Planet Leadership Team