Dressed in army fatigues and armed with nothing but a large plastic bag, the urban warrior had but one task in mind: picking up litter. Over the seven years I lived in Toronto I saw him all over the city, slowly but surely making it a better, greener place - one piece of litter at a time.
I often tried to find information about the urban warrior, but to no avail.
He was nameless. He was faceless (not literally, but figuratively). But he certainly wasn't useless.
In doing a little research for this post, I decided to try and look him up again. While I didn't find him, I did find this guy, Mark Giesbrecht, aka "the litter guy." Much like the urban warrior, Mark spends his days picking up litter in Toronto. Unlike the urban warrior, Mark asks for donations/supplies via a large, handwritten sign that he keeps strapped to his back.
While you can't blame, or shame, a guy for asking for money for a job done, I kind of love the fact that the urban warrior did what he did payment, and glory, notwithstanding.
Either way, both the urban warrior and the litter guy are special people - angels, in their own special way.
According to this article from the Toronto Star, incivility and unfairness trouble Mark.
I know how he feels.
Can you imagine the kind of world we'd live in if everyone cared about the planet, and people, as much as Mark and the urban warrior do?
Mark used to be homeless and his dream is to help the homeless. He works seven days a week to make his $450 a month rent (this is back when the article was written in 2009) and he loves morning talk shows "because ignorant comments about the homeless fill him with the indignation he needs to start his day."
I know how he feels.
One last word.
According to David Suzuki, cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world, with 4.95-trillion (trillion!!!) tossed onto the ground or water every year. "Cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate, a non-biodegradable plastic, which can take up to 25 years to decompose. The toxic butts are ingested by animals, especially birds and marine animals."
And so the urban warrior in all of us must fight on!
Pretty inspirational! Montreal needs one of these. We often see Montreal's downtown core workers (shops and offices) throwing cigarette butts on the sidewalk or at the base of our trees. The bases are usually covered with pebbles and under a metal grid. Regarding the cigarette butts, the situation is so bad that when they water the trees all the cigarette butts pour onto the sidewalk and the garbage sweeper comes and sweeps it all up! Worst of all, some don't even put out the butts, without any concern about the fallen leaves.
ReplyDeleteit's a sad state of affairs...
ReplyDelete