Open Letter: Do Better, When Did Pure Michigan Become Pure Face Mask Litter?

Dear Us:

We have got to do better.

Period.

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I have decided to take up walking to work while it's still nice out. Health, exercise, to get some fresh air, to get some extra steps in, what have you.

I live literally like 5-7 minutes away from the station. A brisk walk and I can be there in about two songs or less being played on my phone through my headphones.

I walk to work in the morning and it's relatively dark out. So the only thing I'm really looking out for is random critters. Especially skunks and raccoons. Well mostly skunks. Every other creature I can fend off or run away screaming like a banshee.

Don't judge me.

But when I walk home, it's light out. I can see everything.

Especially the trash.

Especially this.

I walked home the other day and encountered a new thrown away face mask every minute and a half or so.

It got so after the first two, I challenged myself to find more on my short walk home.

I found a total of four. The first one I didn't snap a photo of.

This one was in my parking lot before I walked inside.

The next time you're out and about, start counting how many you see on the ground in a day.

What's the message? What the point?

We're already trashing our planet. A society of instant gratification and me, me, me. People don't believe in climate change, the effects of prolonged pollution, and practically anything that make sense or is based in common sense or scientific fact.

Especially if it inconveniences us.

See relative is pop vs soda. BTW, it's pop.

Science is science. Facts are facts.

This isn't even about the "should you" or "shouldn't you" wear a face mask debate.

This is could we PLEASE stop trashing our planet.

And now when there are folks who don't want to (or aren't wearing a face mask), could those of you that are PLEASE STOP LITTERING THE PLANET AND OUR BEAUTIFUL STATE WITH THEM?

Are you taking them off in disgust, an act of rebellion, and just tossing them to the ground like your line in the sand?

Ripping it off like you just got out of surgery and then throwing IT on the ground to show the man that you've had enough until you have to wear one again?

These are on the ground EVERYWHERE.

I don't know why it bothers me so much.

Maybe now because I see more quantitatively the trash as it's this one thing. And my mind races as to who did it and why?

Lazy? Angry? Political?

I'm going to run with messy. Petty. Selfish. Uncaring.

We can do some simple things in this world that show we care.

Take your cart back to the cart corral and dispose of your trash properly.

Especially if it's your face mask.

We've got to do better.

We've got to be better.