Every winter break, I visit my grandparents in rural China. In recent years, I’ve noticed that the small stream running through town has been consistently clogged with garbage. When I asked my grandparents, they told me that the town’s residents used the stream as a garbage dump during the winter, since the spring flood would soon come and wash the trash away.
 
I was shocked—how could these residents pollute the water that flowed past their doors so carelessly? But my grandparents told me that this was how the town had always done things, and that the residents wouldn’t likely change their habits. At first, I thought of going door to door and explaining the situation to everyone in town, but eventually I decided to go to the source of the problem.
 
One afternoon, I brought a shovel to the water’s edge and began retrieving garbage. The shovel was heavy and hard, and the garbage was rancid and moist, but I kept working. In the cold winter air, my muscles ached but I didn’t sweat. By the end of the day, a small mountain of plastic bottles and bags had appeared on the riverbank.
 
I was proud of my work, and this article only increased my pride. If I hadn’t cleaned up, the trash would have flowed out to the ocean and joined the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, harming animals in the process. As Mr. Lecomte said, “we need to turn off the tap” and stop trash from flowing into the ocean. Next winter, I’ll show my grandparents’ neighbor this article. Maybe then they’ll rethink their ways.