I was having an amazing day Saturday kayaking down the Delaware river. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. Then I noticed some trash by the side of the river, just a small piece of paper. It broke up the rest of the landscape, stark and white against the brown rocks. It also annoyed me, a lot. I find littering to be one of the things people do that annoys me most because it is so avoidable. Once I had noticed the first piece of litter I began looking for more over and over on the riverbanks. I noticed a lot, probably one piece big or small every 50 or 100 yards.

At one point I noticed a crushed ping pong ball floating 10 feet in front of my cabin. I was in the front of the group, and after trying to catch the ping pong ball and missing, I turned to watch it float away. I watched it float through our entire group, and saw no one pick it up despite all of us caring about the environment. I do not believe this is because we are bad people. I believe it is because most people did not see it, and those who did saw it through the corner of their eye and did not register what it was.

This experience made me think about how much trash we walk by on a daily basis without noticing it. The next morning, thinking about trash I made sure to pay attention to what was on the ground while walking to wawa. In a two block walk I saw two plastic cups, ten cigarette butts, and a panini box. What was incredible to me about this is that I am sure there is the same amount of trash there on a daily basis but I usually never notice any of it. I wonder if other people are like me or I am simply absentminded.