If there’s one way to make a long commute pass quicker it’s being productive, but Dutch artist Tommy Kleyn took this to the next level.
Kleyn – a bicycle commuter, enjoyed his daily ride to work along the river but noticed (in what is becoming a far too common trend these days), the banks were being overwhelmed by trash – most of it plastic.
Unlike many people however, he decided to do something about it.
Utilizing a gripper he happened to have laying around, it took him 30 minutes to fill that first garbage bag, about the same amount of time he said he’d spend disgruntled by the trash in the first place. But a single bag barely made in a dent in thoroughly polluted riverbank and so he made a vow to collect one bag daily until either the reeds grew back, or he could defeat the seemingly insurmountable array of rubbish.
So Kleyn began to set his alarm 30 minutes early each day to not affect his work time, and began to document the entire process on Facebook as an inspiration to others.
Soon, the bank showed real signs of recovery and he began to attract the attention of his fellow cyclists who commented on the great initiative.
But the end result is obvious – not only is the riverbank vastly cleaner, but Kleyn has achieved something he can be truly proud of. And so while I am usually looking for ways to reduce the overall time of a commute, or at least be more productive – doing something selfless and for the environment has to rank right up there at the top – the results are obvious.
If you’d like to see more of Kleyn’s story, he documented his efforts here.
Also be sure to check out his Project Schone Schie on Facebook, where he’s trying to raise awareness and help the environment by encouraging people to not only spent 30 minutes out of their year to fill a bag with litter, but also share their before and after photographs – the results speak for themselves.
This is an imitative I think we can all get behind.
Happy commuting!
