The environment should be everyone’s concern

Harming the environment hurts people and animals. When you harm the environment you are letting the world down. Harming the environment is tremendously bad and everyone should stop doing things to harm the environment.

Smoking is very bad for our environment that we live in. Secondhand smoke kills people every day. Secondhand smoke is a toxic cocktail consisting of poisons and carcinogens. There are over 4,000 chemical compounds in secondhand smoke, 200 of which are known to be poisonous, and upwards of 60 have been identified as carcinogens.

Smoking is also bad for the environment because some people who smoke just throw their cigarettes on the ground. All of these cigarettes go into the sewer, which drains out into the ocean. Cigarettes have many chemicals which kill sea animals.

Littering is also bad for the environment. Littering makes the world a trashy place. Litter gets washed up into the gutter which drains out into the sewer.

The sewer drains into rivers, lakes and oceans. This litter makes it not as safe to swim in these lakes, rivers and oceans. We can fix this problem by helping to pick up trash. We can also help by recycling because bottles and cans are melted down and reused if recycled.

I know that you might think that all this is going to be too much work, and it may be, but wouldn’t it feel great to help save the environment, people and animals? Also, if everyone does their part in helping, then after it’s picked up, we could convince everyone to stop littering.

If they listen, we wouldn’t have any more work to do.

If you help, you would feel great about it. You should help me and all the other citizens of California save the environment, people and animals by picking up trash. Colby Siebersma Thousand Oaks

Colby is an 11yearold student at Redwood Middle School.