Cleaning Up

Yesterday my daughter spent two hours fishing garbage out of a local lake as part of a community service project with her class. Great, you say? It's wonderful that they do this, but the amazing thing is that thirty kids pulled 600 pounds of trash out of a tiny lake in the heart of a city. And this is only since last year's cleanup! Much of their haul was rubber bracelets bars give out to identify those who have paid the cover charge. These bands strangle birds and other animals. There were also hubcaps, teddy bears and beer bottles.
I find it unbelievable that people just toss trash into lakes, yet the proof is all around me. I often see people throw refuse out car windows and I want to make them stop their car and pick it up, only I don't have the tenacity to approach them in these days of road rage and gun violence. It's all really depressing when you stop to think about it. How are we supposed to stop pollution and prevent countries from damaging the environment when so many folks don't even care enough to find a trash can?
My husband now wants to move to the middle of nowhere so we can be away from all the evils that plague cities. Find a house on twenty acres where our nearest neighbors are not visible. I'm trying to hold out faith that people will get better. That the majority of folks are responsible and don't kill a person for his watch or the twenty bucks in his wallet. I live in a place that likes to call itself The City Beautiful in PR campaigns yet all we see is ugly lately. Can you tell we're fed up? So what do you think? Are we all going to hell in a hand basket or is responsibility going to make a comeback?