 only a thought could save the day. I watched as three young Nigerians walked down a clean and well paved road in Lecky Phase 1. This is High Brown Lagos and he dropped the cob of corn with a black cellophane bag, my lung bag. It was one of three but it could have been any one of them. I looked down at the truck down the road. I was torn between picking up the trash and running up to him with it. I visualized stuffing it in the bag that nested on the arm of one of his compatriots. I had picked the trash and returned it back to sender a few times in the past. I had got out of a car in traffic to do the honor of picking a bottle thrown out of a new Honda Accord. I had out of the car I was in and we waited for the traffic lights to go green. I landed the well-dressed but bewildered, offended plastic bottle. Immacally accepted it. However, the passage of time has helped me to realize that there is a bigger problem emanating from our lack of awareness and thoughtlessness. It is frightening how many of us in Lagos have failed to develop a sense of environmental or self-awareness. Some of our acts may not be bad intentions but some of their repercussions have continued to make our way of still life a harrowing experience. The issue of waste disposal is just a touching point of several worthless acts that have become involuntary actions like breathing. In little biology, when an action is produced with the involvement of thoughts, they are called voluntary actions. It involves actions like walking, eating, jumping and running. These actions are produced consciously. Both the spinal cord and the brain are involved and these coordinate with the peripheral nervous system to generate necessary movements. Thoughtlessness is an issue when we do the wrong things automatically. Let's examine the effect of dropping trash on roads. The trash on roads, a lot of times, go into drainages. It drains and the gutters are unable to evacuate water rapidly enough because they are clogged. The overflow floods the roads, flooded roads cause traffic. And some unfortunate motorists might get water in the road compartment of this or a vehicle. He or she would need to pay for some expensive repairs. Over time, the roads also get damaged. More public funds will have to be allocated for road maintenance. Or the road is abandoned to its fate. It becomes an eyesore and a record of a vehicle's suspension. A bad road is also a harbinger of traffic jams and traffic robberies. Every arrange could result in flooding. We have seen pictures of apartments with floating beds. These also result in huge financial losses to individuals or even loss of lives. It is interesting to note that proper waste disposal could drastically reduce the effect of this hail wind. Many people do not understand cause and effects. Too many of us appear to be on autopilot and do things without giving a thought to its repercussion on the environment or others. We need to deliberately start to take this for the future. We need to start teaching the children responsibility. Actions and reactions. We need to teach awareness, both self and environmental awareness. How does shunting in traffic affect others? What of jumping queues and energy thefts? Not paying for services rendered. We need to train the coming generation to see beyond an individual picture so that actions that take into cognisance of communal good will become our new normal. Man, do you know as you were talking? All I could think was, my goodness, how one little action, the ripple effect of it because at first I thought waste disposal is a bad thing. But the more you painted that green picture, the more scared I became that the bad roads. The final challenge of the society we live in from just one thoughtless action that we carry out. Like when I was growing up, I remember that my mom would insist you dare not throw something out of the window or throw a litre or you're going in one of this house. You sit on the floor, you must pick it up. And then the question then becomes is anybody actually telling anyone don't do this? Many years ago it was actually this big bill was around that long road that this is setting up where they talk about you know what litre there was a litre campaign and advocated then of course Kai but I guess suddenly you've triggered something in me I hope it does trigger something in other people and we see some difference with this but it was quite starting for me to realise what thoughtlessness can actually do in the big picture. What I find really amusing in this situation is is it that they don't know or they teach them in school that you should not litre no I mean because I can't fang on it and what actually drives me crazy we've discussed this on the advocate before and what drives me crazy the most is when you see Roma officials these ladies in orange suits or the roads and legos roads in particular sweeping the roads and now sweeping the sand into the water. I mean when they are not trained before they got that job they are compounding the problem and truly we all cannot even do enough and you know the funnest thing waste business is so lucrative if you can key into it you know how much we can make if every household is made to pay the minimum amount for waste disposal how much it could generate the government could generate it's a lot of money that we are not actually making I like it it's a lot of money it can't go without each other because truly the last time we were discussing this point comfort was like what am I going to do with my waste if the government doesn't come and pick it what do I do I'm tired of honestly discussing these issues that you know were things that it's not as if we were not managing these things before you made a very good point I love the way you broke it down the ripple effect it was really well written and when any time mentioned about our parents I can still hear her come and pick that thing did you throw it out of the window is everything alright with you I can still remember it I mean it's the same thing that I do and when did we lose that then what happened to sanitation days I know that there was an issue of yes it was infringing on so we now made it a legal thing so what happened to the legislation and said this was something that was making some headway it was working because we actually became tuned to it at that time in a certain part so why didn't somebody take it off the legislation let us make this into a law so that on these days we have agreed we are going to infringe on our right to move here because we want to clean our country because that's what it should be now we have did you see that devastating picture of the car inside the plastics and all that we don't have the infrastructure to take care of the waste we have an overblotted population that is turning out waste on a daily basis then we have an uncivilized population that does not think anything of as you say you being a car if I see somebody that I don't think okay probably doesn't know but I expect the person who is driving a car who has just picked children from the school in fact you see the mother helping the child wind down the window to toss it out of the window I mean how did we get there you know for me comfort one year I thought your advocacy was brilliant but I believe in Nigeria it's not thoughtlessness it's thoughtful man I'll explain why I was on a flight coming back from outside the country and there was this woman who carried her trash and remember she was having chocolates I don't know why she was having eating lots of chocolates but she dropped them in the trash in the airport way the moment she lands they go let me tell you she is throwing the trash in the plane whoa the same person like really so I don't believe it's thoughtlessness I believe we have trained ourselves to understand that in Nigeria we are all above the law comfort was mentioning legislation it's people that know the constitution that can change the laws I didn't say anything when it's not legislation I do not think that truly that you can actually legislate behaviour I mean I've been on a paradigm shift campaign and that's the things I do communication for development some things I have to do in mindset and that's why I was keen into the fact that the thoughtlessness of it see what you may say it wasn't thoughtlessness the reality is that when you are in different environments there are parts of your brain that just switch mode I'm telling you but I think of money it's about success okay let's have a thoughtful conversation just after this hope next is comfort stay tuned