The Environment Belongs To You and I

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A few weeks ago, the community talked about pollution in the environment. We also talked about the dangers it posed and many of us suggested measures in which the amount of pollution could be reduced.

There was one thing I noticed when going through the posts and I noticed that many of us heaped the majority of the responsibilities on the government.

Yes, they are meant to provide suitable infrastructure to enable the free flow of waste, but in countries like Nigeria where I am from, things like these are seriously lacking. Still, we cannot always be waiting for the government, can we?

There are little things we can do in our environment, individual acts that will help in making the place a little bit cleaner and more habitable not just for us, but for our children and neighbors as well.

For starters, let us all stop throwing things out into the street. It is sad to see people throw their waste out into the streets. It could be anything from nylons and plastic down to the guts of a fish. Some people would just throw these things out in the open and dump them on the road.

What this does is create a fertile breeding ground for flies, and every home in that immediate vicinity will be affected. And since it is out in the open, it might not give off a bad odor if the quantity is small. But should it be much, once it starts to decay, people are really going to suffer. You would not be able to walk down that street without covering your nose. Also, it also gives the street a bad look. It would look dirty and unkempt, and there would be absolutely nothing eye-catching about the place.

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Another thing to always do is to clear out your gutters regularly. This works for those whose gutters are blocked and those whose gutters work perfectly as well. Always make sure the gutters are neat. And you should also know that gutters are not dustbins or trash sites where waste can be thrown away. No, there are already measures in place for that. It is things like the trash that make the gutters fill up and when there is too much plastic it blows the path and once the rains come, the flood will follow soon after.

If the gutter is not properly cleaned up, there will be pools of water there, and biodegradable wastes will decay this would not just make the place have a repulsive odor, but it will also be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Something that has to be avoided at all costs.

Note that you do not have to clean out the entire gutter in your street, all you have to do is make sure that the one closest to your house is properly cleaned. That will greatly reduce the amount of waste that is accumulated in your area.

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One more thing that you can do to keep the environment safer and cleaner, is to clear the bushes that are close to where you are living. Provided there are bushes close to where you are living, then you have to clear them. The reason is way beyond mosquitoes and odors, even though they follow as well.

Bushes are great hiding places for rodents and reptiles, they are hard to catch during the day, and at night it will all be worse. They could sneak into your house and you would not even have a clue. These are how accidents happen.

But if the environment is clean and healthy, there would be no hiding place for such animals. Clear out the bushes and make sure they are always at the ground level, that way with one glance you would be able to see if there was anything hiding at all.

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There are a lot of things that can be done to facilitate a cleaner environment, things that we are meant to do simply because we are humans and they would be beneficial to us. We should no longer have to wait for the government to get what we need, especially seeing as these are things that we can get for ourselves and not spend a dime.

Hopefully, very soon, the government would begin to act as it should and more infrastructure would be put in place to make life more meaningful and healthy.

So friends, what do you think of this? Do you recognize these environmental habits? Do you default on them? Feel free to let me know in the comments section below.

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Thank you for reading, till we meet in the next post.