Kids Page: The Picnic

TROWEL & SWORD

Resources - Children's Pages

May 2001

Kid's page

The Picnic

Anne Groenenboom

When Dad stopped at the picnic spot by the river, the children jumped out of the car, ready to help. As they carried rugs and chairs toward the picnic tables, they stared in dismay. There was rubbish everywhere, cans and bottles, fast food wrappers and containers, plastic cutlery and broken glass. The lid had been left off the garbage bin and some crows were pulling rubbish from the bin as they searched for food scraps. They flew off noisily as the children approached.
“It’s too messy to have our picnic here!” Chris exclaimed grimly.

“We’ll have to clean up first,” Dad replied. “If we leave it like this, we’re no better than the people who left it in such a mess. It won’t take us long.”

“We shouldn’t have to clean up after other people!” Chris protested, as Dad began to scoop the broken glass into a takeaway food container.

“I know, Chris, but we have to do it if we want to enjoy our picnic.”

Mum gave the children some plastic bags and showed them how to pick the rubbish up, using the bags to keep their hands clean. The cans were put into a recycling bag, then the rest of the rubbish was cleared away and the lid placed firmly on the bin.

As the family ate lunch, Chris and Amy noticed that lots of the young trees had been broken off close to the ground.

“Why would anyone spoil such a beautiful place?” Amy asked indignantly.

“Some people enjoy spoiling things,” Dad replied. “All they think about is having their kind of fun, they don’t care about keeping things nice and they certainly don’t care about other people.”

“I hope there aren’t many people like that!” Chris commented. “The world would be spoiled in no time.”

“Yes, Chris, but there are too many people who don’t care what happens to the environment, as long as it doesn’t affect what they want. Remember when God made the world and gave it to people to use for their needs, he established special patterns for water, air, soil, plants and so on.”

“I remember the seeds and plants pattern!” Carla exclaimed excitedly.
“Well, people often do things to upset those patterns that God made.”
“We’ve been learning about pollution at school, that’s what you mean, isn’t it, Dad?” Amy asked and Dad nodded.

“People often do things that spoil water and air and soil,” Dad answered. “God gave us these things to use, but we have to be careful as we use them. In all the things we do every day, we can’t help causing some pollution, but we must make sure it’s kept to a minimum.”
“Even people who don’t know God realise that those patterns made in the beginning can easily be damaged and that the earth needs to be cared for,” Mum added.

“Why don’t people care about keeping everything nice?” Carla wanted to know.

“Sometimes they’re too lazy, like the last people who had their picnic here, “ Mum replied.

“Just think what the world would look like if everybody left a mess behind them!” Amy commented. “Nobody would be able to go on picnics any more!”

“That’s right, Amy. It wasn’t hard to clean up a little mess like this, but if you have more and more mess, then it becomes a real problem.”

When lunch was finished, the children collected all the rubbish in a plastic bag. They put the lid tightly on the garbage bin when the rubbish was stowed inside. Then they went for a walk along the track beside the river. The water looked sparkling clean as it splashed its way down the slope.

“That water looks clean enough to drink, but it‘s probably polluted,” Mum remarked. Amy looked surprised. “How could it be polluted so far away from people?”

“Well, our picnic spot was polluted by people and that’s only just down the track,“ Dad stated. “There’s also a road up along the top of these hills and there are people living up there, so the creek will be polluted.”

“I thought you could always see when something is polluted,” Amy said.

“No, Amy. That’s why pollution can be so dangerous. We can do something about the pollution we see, but if nobody notices, it can do lots of damage. That water probably has septic tank run-off in it, from the houses up there. It could make you very sick if you drank it.” Mum replied.

“We cross this river on the way home,” Dad said. “We’ll stop when we get there and see how clean it is.”

“It’s time we were going home, if we’re going to stop off at the river,” Mum reminded them, so they went back to the car. As they headed along the highway, Chris and Amy noticed rubbish along the edges of the road.

“Why is there so much mess everywhere?” Amy asked.

“Some people toss their rubbish out of their cars. They don’t care what the roads look like as long as their cars are tidy,” Mum replied. “Some of the rubbish that you can see has probably blown from somewhere else, but that means that somebody has been careless with it to start with.”

“That happens in our playground,” Carla commented. “I don’t like picking other people’s rubbish up, but from now on I won’t grumble. I like things to look nice.”

“Aren’t people who drop litter supposed to get on-the-spot fines?” Amy asked.

“The police have to be on the spot to catch them dropping their rubbish and there aren’t enough police to do that, especially when they’re so busy doing other things,” Dad replied. “There are laws to stop people damaging the environment, but it’s not easy to catch the ones who cause the damage. When we get to the river again, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Just before they came to the bridge, Dad turned off and took a side road down toward the river. He told the children to watch where they were walking and to stay close to him. Mum carried Joel. As they walked toward the water Carla wrinkled her nose and asked, “What’s that dreadful smell? It stinks!”

“It’s the river that smells so bad, Carla. Just look at it!” Dad answered.
The children were horrified at what they saw. The water was covered with a horrible oily-looking scum with soapy bubbles along the edges and they could see bits of old junk sticking out of it, even an old mattress. There was also lots of the same rubbish they’d seen along the highway.

“It certainly looks different than the clear water we saw near the picnic area,” Mum said.

“What happened to all that nice water?” Carla asked. Dad told her that the river had become a rubbish dump, so now it was “dead” and no fish could live in it.

“In the past, people tossed rubbish into water because then nobody could see it. They didn’t realise the damage they were doing until bad things started happening, but they’ve learned from their mistakes and now most people take care. These days people who dump rubbish into rivers and creeks know that they’re doing the wrong thing, but they don’t care.” Dad continued.

“This is not a nice place to be. I want to go home where everything is clean and fresh,” Amy shuddered and they all hurried back to the car.

‘Why can’t people get rid of their rubbish properly?” Amy asked as they drove off. “Why don’t they recycle everything?”

“Some things are very hard to recycle, Amy,” Dad answered. “Sometimes people just don’t know what to do with the rubbish they have so they dump it late at night when nobody can see them. Things like dangerous chemicals cost a lot to send to a special dump, so people try to find easier and cheaper ways to get rid of them.”

“Can’t we do something to fight against pollution?” Chris asked.

“We certainly can, Chris, but it’s hard to get everyone interested in cleaning up the environment.” Dad remarked.

“Well, I’m going to try!” Chris stated and Amy nodded in agreement.

“We’ll pray about it and we’ll work out a plan after tea, to see what we can do and how many people we can get involved.” Chris continued. “We have to make sure that God’s world isn’t ruined by the things that people do!”

THINGS TO DO :

Help with the recycling at your place. Find out which things aren’t included in your local recycling program and write to your local council asking them to find ways of recycling them too.
Get your friends to help you watch out for any pollution in your area.
Ask an adult to advise you about what to do, if you find any pollution. You must be very gentle in the way you speak to people who are polluting. (Remember that this is not easy when you are upset about pollution.)
Watch news bulletins and become aware of global pollution problems. Discuss these with your parents. Finding solutions for some of these is extremely difficult.
Remember that some people make lots of fuss about protecting plants and animals and they say that people have no rights at all. That is not a Christian viewpoint. Discuss this with your parents.

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