Me and NotInPhilly

In my previous two blog posts I have told you about Taney and Bainbridge streets’ problem with litter and my own outdoor observations of my streets. In this blogpost I will be telling you about me actually acting on this situation. In my blogpost, ¨Litter Search and Solutions¨, in the end, I mentioned signing up and joining Not In Philly to help make a positive change in myself and my community. Recently, I have created for  myself an account on http://notinphilly.org/ and registered to clean and Taney street. When you register to clean up your street it shows map of Philadelphia with roads for you to choose from and it shows you who else is currently cleaning that street and the streets near by and how many people there are for that street. When I registered for Taney Street it said I was the first person to register for cleaning that street.

The day after I registered, I went out on Taney street in the afternoon and picked up trash and recyclables off the street with a trash grabber and a plastic bag. I picked up the trash with the help of my father. My father helped me take the pictures of the trash with his camera. We also did a little extra cleaning on Bainbridge Street. When I was out on the street seeing all the trash on the street made me feel displeased with some of my neighbors and sad knowing that it was hurtful to the people, plants and animals that live in this  neighborhood. But when I cleaned up the trash and looked back when I was done, I was very satisfied with how clean the streets looked and was happy knowing I had done a good deed.

Let me tell you about my experience with the Not In Philly registration. There I made myself a new account. Signing up was easy: on their website they gave me a form where I just had to give my name, my phone number, my address, my email address, and make up a password. After that they gave me an email telling me to go to their website and choose a block/street to clean, I choose a block on Taney Street because it was next to my house. I trust this website because it is not a big faceless corporation or a money hungry business. It is a nonprofit organization that seeks to make a good difference and it is currently happening everywhere around the city unlike the Philadelphia Streets Litter Cabinet which I have never seen in action. I also trust this organization because it was created by a well known family friend who is kind and looks towards improving the city and solving its problems, like the litter on the streets.

A website that I found that focuses on reducing litter is called the Litter Less campaign. This campaign not only encourages people to pick up trash but it also aims for changing the minds of children about the problem of littering and what they can do to make a difference, ¨It aims to engage and educate children and young people on the issue of litter, and encourage them to make positive choices.¨(http://www.ecoschools.global/about-the-campaign). The organization is involved in 35 schools around the world and they educate children on cleaning up litter.  I like how this focuses on younger generations, teaching them not to litter.  If we can teach each generation not to litter, pretty soon young people and adults all over the world might stop littering and be more concerned about keeping the environment clean.

Overall, I feel that I have made a change with myself and my neighborhood. My change is that I have gone from just being against littering to standing up and physically acting on the problem. I have made a change in my neighborhood by being the newest person to having a habit of cleaning the streets and being a example to keeping the streets healthy and clean to the neighborhood. I feel really proud of myself for developing these new good habits. So far I plan on cleaning the streets one day every week, but I want to expand this by starting clean on two or three days a week. What is left to be done is to get more people in my neighborhood to clean the streets and join Not In Philly. I love making a good difference in my neighborhood and making clean and healthy decisions.

"About the Campaign." Eco Schools. Eco Schools, 2014. Web. 08 June 2017.

http://notinphilly.org/

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1a1IMIcIqSX8D1xx5avGy6a4UGhaZAydxWbygZ_MH0RQ/edit?usp=sharing

My trash grabber with a piece of plastic.

Some trash around a neighbor’s flower pot.

My collected trash in a plastic bag.