I won through the first level of the contest of a speech about the environment. Then the second level.
Later I was called to speak on stage at a training for would be entrepreneurs to demonstrate the ability to speak in public to raise awareness for a cause or charity.
I said:
When I walk around a room like this or the street in a city, I notice all the debris that human beings leave behind, on tables and under chairs and in wastebins. We are like snails which leave behind slime, a trail of evidence of where they have been.
It doesn't have to be like that. You must have seen pictures of the debris left behind after a major event such as a rock concert in a field. Piles of trash left behind. It doesn't have to look like that next day. Every monring you can walk into Disney World and the place is pristine clean, because a group of poeple have cleaned up.
Seeing the place look clean has encouraged everybody to keep it clean. In Canada they found that even two pieces of litter on the ground was enough to make others think everybody was dropping litter and it was OK to do so. So do your bit.
If a million people in a city all drop litter we have a mess, and clutter in the ocean. If a million pople use recycling bins or better still take litter home, which everybody does in Japan, we would have clean cities and clean oceans. You can pick up a piece of litter dropped by somebody else.
When I walk past a shopping mall I see beautiful bags discarded in bins next to the smart shops. Big tote bags with lovely handles. If the bags are pretty and clean I rescue them. They can all be reused.
Most of the things we throw away could be reused. A discarded t-shirt which is old or stained or no longer wanted because it has last year's date could be made into a tee-towel. Clothes which don't fit can be changed. A top which is too tight can be slit up the sides and made into a tabard or tunic.
When I walk around the ground floor of both public housing and provate condos, I see large items of furniture abandoned by the bins. Chairs and tables have a missing leg or are chipped or need repainting.
Singapore flag
A Singapore resident told me that Singaporeans like to throw out the old and buy new. But those items, if taken to Malaysia would be used by poor people or owners of second hand shops. Old TVs and screens would be fixed.
All the small items could be reused in our homes. In the Sixties it was fashionable to conver a glass bottle into a table lamp and you could buy a top to fix to the bottle. A plastic or glass bottle can be cut in half and made into a flower vase or a pen and pencil holder.
A cardboard cereal box can be cut diagonally and turned into a magazine holder. At Chrsitmas I have seen ceral boxes advertising that the box can be flattned and reused as a board game which is printed on the reverse of the box. I hope that one day we will all be able to reduce the mount of waste from a house or building to only the contents of one small box a year, as has been done by at least one family who experimented to see if it was possible. Yes, it is. That is my vision for my future, and yours and ours.
Author
Angela Lansbury.
