It’s disheartening to see so many people treating local rural roads as their own personal dumping ground. It’s not uncommon to find fast food waste, drywall, old tires, piles of trash, and plastic bags stuffed full of soiled diapers dumped along the roadside and flung into the ditches. Not only is it rude to property owners who end up having to collect and dispose of this rubbish, it’s harmful to the local wildlife. Litter makes the area look bad. The more of it there is, the more people see it and start to think it’s acceptable to just toss things out onto someone else’s property.

Would these litterbugs take their garbage and dump it all over someone’s front yard in the city? Of course not. But for some reason when they leave city limits they suddenly don’t care and act like the dirt roads of Alpena Township are a landfill. Do they even care what kind of example they’re setting for their children who are likely in the car with them when they toss garbage out the window?

How hard is it to keep a small trash bag or a diaper receptacle inside your vehicle and dispose of your garbage properly into a trash can? Even children in kindergarten learn how to put trash into a trash can, so there’s no excuse for adults littering. This area is blessed with beautiful forests and an abundance of wildlife, and deserves better than trash flung everywhere.

Please be more considerate, take some pride in your surroundings, and have some respect for your neighbors.

SARAH FARKAS,

Alpena