I Littered on Earth Day

I try to do the right thing for Mother Earth as often as possible. I recycle. I try to buy things with minimal packaging (this is really hard to do, have you noticed?). I walk or ride my bike when it's realistic. I pick up trash when I see it on the ground (unless it's someone else's tissues and then Mother Earth is going to have to fend for herself because that's just gross).

My biggest downfall is probably my water consumption. I'm a sucker for a long hot shower or long hot bath in my giant bathtub. Occasionally I forget to turn off the water when I'm doing dishes, but I've been better about that.

Because today is Earth Day, there are tons of activities going on at the boys' school. The kids are going around all day with two grocery bags tied to them. They'll put their trash in the bags all day long (all trash cans have been removed from the school although I hope they don't carry around uneaten food tied to them all day)--one bag for things that can be recycled, one bag for things that are trash. At the end of the day the whole school will go out on the lawn and dump their trash and recycling bags into two separate piles to demonstrate how much waste they have produced in a day (and then hopefully they'll clean it all up again and I'm also grateful it's not a windy day).

Anyway, I'm a volunteer for this afternoon's activities. I had volunteered for the afternoon shift because I went to Denver yesterday (I surivived the fast, but didn't get to eat until about 2pm whereby I went crazy on sushi as promised) and at this time of year you never know when a spring snowstorm will roll through and strand you somewhere and since Denver had two feet of snow last weekend, I figured I'd better be prepared. So I volunteered for the afternoon to give myself extra time in case of a stranding. That's not necessarily important, I just felt like writing it.

As everyone arrived for school, the morning shift volunteers were passing out leaflets about ways to save the planet. I tucked my save the planet leaflet in my pocket and went on my merry way. I had to do an errand, which I did on foot because it is, of course, Earth Day, and we live in a small town where you can often do your errands on foot. But the end result was that I had to retrace my steps at one point and I saw some trash that I hurried over to pick up. What I discovered pretty quickly was that it was MY trash--my Earth Day leaflet that I had tucked into my pocket earlier--that was disgracing the sidewalk.

I wonder what the penalty is for littering on Earth Day?