Sweeping

On today’s walk, my cousin and I were talking about trash.

The lack of collective plans and practices on litter collection in our neighborhood.

It’s something we observe in the morning when people open up shops; they start with cleaning and sweeping. A morning ritual or routine as businesses open up.

Some sweep (read push) litter from their shop door onto the road.

Others take the extra step, diligently sweeping, gathering but disposing off the litter into the drainage beside the roadside.

And so we asked ourselves, which is which? Of course, the preference is to have a trash collection plan, but it’s clear there isn’t one.

Sweeping is those hard small things one has to do. It is tedious, requires attention, and is repetitive.

But I think the main problem here is a lack of collective planning on how trash gets disposed off, and so they keep sweeping toward the road, a neighbor's shop, and have to keep repeating that every day. And even more, as new trash accumulates.