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If you walked down the banks of any lake, stream, river and bayou in the area, you are likely to run across cans, bottles, bags, forks, spoons and clothes.

On one section of Workinger Bayou in Concordia Parish, you can find a Cozy Coupe sticking out of the mud.

We live in a sportsman’s paradise and one could argue a natural paradise. Waterways, natural forests and beautiful fields sprawl across the Miss-Lou region in natural splendor.

Litter takes away from this natural beauty and shows how lazy a society can be.

It takes little effort to throw away trash. It does take a lot of effort, and taxpayer money, to clean up a mess that shouldn’t be there in the first place.

When you are on the lake and enjoying an adult beverage, don’t throw a bottle or can into the lake. Put it in a bag on your boat and dispose of trash into a trash can — not the lake. You have to pass a trash can at some point.

The region loses potential revenue if tourists see trash in our natural scenes and form a negative opinion of our region.

Let us keep the Miss-Lou beautiful.

For our kids, our fishermen, our lake goers, our tourists and the taxpayers, it’s our community.

Let us take pride in keeping it clean.