William H. Smith November 24, 1999

1204 Christmas Tree Lane about 600 words

Pearce, Az. 85625

303-36-7671

(520) 826-1029

Charm or Refuse

By

William H. Smith

The area written about in this article is along forest roads FR345 and FR687, the National Forest boundary starting on Middle March Road at Searle's ranch, and on FR687 that goes north.

Take notice, the road sides are free of aluminum cans, bottles, paper (including toilet paper), throwaway diapers, and various auto parts. That is they are free of trash one to two days a week when forest personnel patrol these roads picking up trash, destroying hot camp fires and their rings, and discarding wood ashes. If these roads weren’t patrolled every week they would soon turn into refuse dumps.

It appears that many people enjoy looking at the roadsides as refuse dumps and do their part to make them appear as such. These same people probably live the same way at home, and don't realize that responsible people don't trash their habitat. Folks enjoy seeing clean roadsides, but will not leave them clean for the next person to enjoy.

Not only do the motorists leave trash, the campers and other users leave their share. The worse of these offenses are using the bathroom on the ground and washes. Not only do some humans not bury their human waste, they also dot the ground with toilet paper.

The items found that are considered as trash are aluminum cans, bottles, various paper products, discarded automobile parts, toilet paper, throw away diapers, sanitary napkins, plastic jugs and other plastic items, cigarette butts, firearm brass, firewood, ashes from fire pits and rings, and other disgusting bits of lifter.

Why do some humans trash the roadsides and camping sites? These are some reasons I have come up with:

1. They are ignorant and don't know any better, this is how their parents taught them (assuming they had parents), teaching them to be thoughtless and irresponsible, therefore teaching their children also to be irresponsible as they are.

2. They live this way at home, and believe that everybody wants to live in filth.

3. They are unthinking, decayed humans that cannot stand to see anything

neat and clean.

4. They want to make other people's life miserable.

5. They enjoy being law breakers, and it inflates their egos to trash roadsides

and campsites believing they have very little chance of being caught.

6. They are just plain thoughtless of others.

The reasons why some people don't trash the area:

1. They had loving, caring parents who taught them to be responsible human beings.

2. They find an area clean, and leave it that way for others to enjoy.

3. They are thoughtful, caring folks who want others to see the beauty. They

also pick up other's trash to keep the forest clean.

The worse offenders of leaving toilet paper, seems to be the female of the human race. Along the roadside and camping sites, the toilet paper is mostly of the number one type, not the number two type. We all know that boys probably don’t use toilet tissue for number one.

Bringing this article to a close, I ask, when using the forest roads and camping sites, please leave them in a condition that is attractive. Not only does this make a more desirable. place to recreate in, but it also provides more money and time to improve all the areas for all of the people. Please be good responsible neighbors

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