There are two things we notice right away when we arrive in a new city. The first is litter and the second is graffiti. Sadly these two eyesores can be found from the remotest village to the largest city. Even more disturbing is that the most prolific form of litter comes in the form of plastic bags. They are on the beaches, in parks, caught in trees, thrown out bus windows and anywhere in between. Now this isn't to say we don't use these necessary evils, but there are options available to lessen the amount of bags that end up littering our world.

The first change we made is to bring our backpack along when grocery shopping. That way we can stuff our groceries in it and it is much easier to carry back to our room which can be a jaunt sometimes. To our pleasant surprise many European cities have started to charge shoppers for each bag they use. We love this idea because what happens is that people use the bags in their house or in some cases they shop with a wicker basket or cloth shopping bags. Whatever fits your fancy, but for every plastic bag you leave at the store one less hits the landfills and the streets where you live. Keep in mind that at the grocery store you may have to continually remind the clerks that you don't need or want a bag. There are some that would put a plastic bag around a pack of gum if let them, so don't.

For some further statistics and reusable shopping bag ideas please visit the following website.

www.reusablebags.com

Other forms of litter which could be avoidable due to the overwhelming number of garbage bins available:

(In no particular order)

1. Cigarette butts, we know they are small, but in Europe where they love their smokes, those little butts add up quickly and tossing them over a edge of a boat is completely disrespectful to our friends under the sea. 2. Pet poop. Hey, why not reuse a plastic bag and clean after your pet? 3. Everything else left steps away from a trash can. If everyone took 5 minutes of their day and grabbed a few pieces of litter off the ground you could mark off your good deed for the day.

Now on to part two, graffiti, it's everywhere you look if you really look. A lot of times we wouldn't notice all the graffiti as we drove merrily from one place to another. Someday though when you are stuck in traffic or out for a walk, look around, I bet there is a dumpster, wall, pole or fence that will contain some assortment of graffiti. Again we aren't asking you to rid your entire city of graffiti alone. Fortunately there are some programs and some groups out there designed for graffiti removal days.

Here are a few places to get started.

Keep America Beautiful
Graffiti Hurts

If you find your town doesn't have such a program designed then perhaps you can start one and change your towns future and increase its beauty all at the same time. Studies show that dirt breeds dirt and crimes that go on without punishment breeds more crime. When Giuliani came into office as the mayor of New York City one of the first things he did was to clean up the subway trains. Everyday city workers would paint over the graffiti and every night the "artists" would cover them with their work. This went on day in and day out until the graffiti artist finally gave up. That's not to say they stopped, but spray paint isn't super cheap, so if you stick to showing them you won't put up with their continual disrespect of your property they will tire or eventually be broke in the end.

So there you have it. These are a couple of issues that we have noticed worldwide and hopefully we're given you something to thing about and the tools to get started to make a change. We cold go on and on about the very pressing topics such as animal abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, child abuse, hunger and children being used in the sex industry, but there isn't enough time left in our trip and we know there are great nonprofits out there waiting to receive any help you can provide. Whatever gets under your skin is a great indicator of where to start. Just do something. Thanks for reading! We are stepping down for now.