Don't take cleaners for granted

There weren’t that many of us but in the area of the heath around Harpenden Road we managed to collect 20 black sacks of litter in less than two hours.

There were also more bulky items such as kitchen worktops, signboards from activities the previous year, metal pieces and an oil drum.

It’s fun doing something like this for two hours. There is a sense of community with local residents working together to create a better environment.

For me as a Christian, there is the added satisfaction of ridding God’s natural world of items that are spoiling its beauty.

But what of those whose job it is to do this all day every day?

There are those who work on foot in the city centre to keep the streets clean.

There are also those who empty my black, green, and brown bins, not to mention my paper box.

Would I want to do that all day every day? It’s tough.

Let’s celebrate those who keep our environment clean: litter-pickers, bin-emptiers, drain-clearers, public-loo-cleaners, window-washers, and others.

I’m very aware that when Jesus listed the values of his Kingdom, he gave priority to those we might ignore and reversed our normal sense of hierarchy. The last, he said, would be first.

He himself would have been out on a wet, cold day with the bin-emptiers rather than being chauffeured to a London office in style.

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