Say no to Littering

Aboy around fifteen to sixteen-year-old, was holding heaps of leaflets in one hand and distributing with the other. Passersby were taking them and after a glance or two throwing them on road. All of a sudden a GHMC sweeper turned up and forcefully snatched all the leaflets and went away, while the boy kept pleading. The boy was advertising for some service.

                  One of the definitions of advertising is- ‘Advertising is any paid form of any non-personal presentation of goods, ideas and services by an identified sponsor’. ‘It is controlled form of persuasion through mass communication’.If we go by the definition ‘Distributing leaflets in public’ is also a form of advertising. Of course neither the boy nor the sweeper knows these definitions but the question here is why was he stopped from doing his job? Why was she so annoyed that she took the extreme step of snatching those tiny papers? Whose job is more responsible? Or Say who is at fault? Was the boy’s job unacceptable? Or was the sweeper doing it more responsibly by weeding away the root of the problem (Littering). Or is the public lacks civic sense? Do we have enough trash cans and awareness programs to stop littering? Or is it an example of how the voiceless or the weaker ones are dominated by the stronger ones. Innumerable questions are arising in my mind. Who is to be blamed? My heart went out for that boy.

There should be a vision to make our city cleaner. This could be one of  the solutions. Every individual has to co-operate. We should treat our city roads as verandah or lawn of our homes. The government should also place enough trash cans and should create awareness on using the same.Awareness will bring change. Once the message gets across then our city roads will look cleaner and hygienic.The sweepers will not rebuke. The city will remain clean. One can proudly say ‘My Hyderabad, My city’!