After seeing the Cesar Palace, Forum and Colosseum we headed to the Trevi Fountain. At the bottom of the central steps leading down to the fountain was what looked like the remains of a small newspaper, with individual pages strewn about. My friend and I walked past this area, then settled on a section of shaded seats and enjoyed the ambience of the day, beautiful weather, loads of people, moving constantly stopping to do individual or group photos, working collaboratively on taking pictures of each other. After a half hour or so, I put on my glove, used specifically for de-littering, and headed toward the papers with my two bags. One for collectables and the other for trash, as I do on my morning beach walks.
As I cleared the area at the bottom of the steps, it was obvious that my small bags were not big enough for the trash in that area.
With limited time I opted instead to focus on the marble seats at the water’s edge. There were many plastic bottles, and some glass. It was easy to see what the deal was. Since the person sitting down was way closer to the bottle on the ground than I, with the trash bags, upon pointing directly to the MOOP (matter out of place) people naturally picked up the bottle and added to one of the bags.
Truly a more co-operative approach to de-littering this wonderful day in Rome. It was fun to interact and everyone was happy as we de-littered the fountain area. My Trevi wish was to continue having fun developing existing relationships and to foster new ones.
No, we did not de-litter the entire area. The heavy crowds made it extremely difficult to do so.
After I completed the “exercise” I returned to my friend, who was celebrating her birthday. We were planning to head to a nearby restaurant for some special cake. As we were preparing to leave, I was asked a question by this very handsome young man from Napoli, and the conversation went from there…. All I can say it that it was heart warming, as now there were five of us laughing and carrying on like a bunch of kids, sharing a love of life and creating fond memories to carry forth.
Whether you’re involved in co-creating a cleaner space or co-creating a collective open heart, it’s all good. Contemplate on that.
