20th April - Day 37 - Chair Pollution

I spotted this fly tipping yesterday when cycling home - not that anyone could miss it.

What I don’t understand is, if people made the effort to get it out into the countryside, they must have the transport to take it to an amenity site - or have I just let the sun go to my head and am failing again to understand human motivation?

Since 1970, Earth Day has been marked on 22 April. This year it spans three days from today to the 22nd and the theme is ‘Restore our Earth’

As you know, I like to include some fact that is either useless or, seen more positively, as something you never realised you needed to know - until now! So - In 2019/20 Local Authorities in England dealt with just under a million fly-tipping incidents, with the cost of clearance believed to be nearly £50 million.

Seen from another perspective- that £50 million would cover the entire costs of St Wilfrid’s Centre for 100 years or provide 250 million mugs of tea for clients.

So, until we are able to persuade people not to dump rubbish and/or restore the earth, we can at least recognise that living on this planet is one thing we all have in common and we have a shared responsibility for everybody on it. Please continue, therefore, to help share the responsibility for raising much needed funds for the St Wilfrid’s Centre. After all, if I was aiming for £50 million, at an average sponsorship of £30 a day, I’d have to keep cycling for 1.6 million days or 4566 years! My knees and heated socks definitely won’t keep going that long!

“The Earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.” John Paul II