AS THE WATER RECEDES

As the water recedes there remains an unfortunate scene.  If it were only driftwood and leaves, no worries would there be.  The plastic though – six pack rings, soda and booze bottles, snuff and worm containers and butane lighters litter the shore in Bay City Bay.  You can see the line of debris on the road in the photos below.

It’s troubling to see.  The Styrofoam chunks.  The flip flops and sandals missing their other half.  Unbroken light bulbs even.  The trash.  It’s an ugly sight in such a beautiful place.  A very small sample of 2,320 miles of Mississippi River shoreline.

Plastic pollution is terrible.  Everyone has seen what is happening in the oceans.  I see this a lot in the local trout streams I fish.  My fishing net is most often full of cans, bottles and plastic worm containers each time I leave the stream.  My wife and I constantly retrieve plastic bottles from the Bay City area while kayaking.  Each and every time I encounter this, I utter to myself, “what the hell is wrong with people?”  I understand that plastic is extremely useful – especially in healthcare.  How some can so carelessly discard it is beyond comprehension.   This is only going to get worse unless people start thinking beyond the convenience of today.

Litter is every town’s dirty little secret. No one wants to admit how ugly it is, or the fact that it is getting worse despite decades of anti-litter education such as those early-’70s posters and commercials whose taglines were “Don’t be a litterbug” and “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”

The dirtiest part of this dirty secret is that many if not most litterers are young. They’re not so young that they don’t realize what they’re doing. They’re cognizant enough to acquire the snacks and cigarettes in the first place, to choose from a selection of products and brands and pay for their selections. When they litter, they know they’re littering.
~www.psychologytoday.com

The bulk of the problem in my estimation

Some people litter because they’ve come to believe that whatever they do, others will pick up after them. They have no sense of responsibility. This idea was confirmed by a veteran California highway patrolman who reported that in his twenty years-plus of pulling drivers over for tossing litter out their car windows — a misdemeanor punishable by fines of up to $1,000 — not once had an offender ever apologized once caught. They either denied having littered or shrugged off the act as insignificant ~ Rob Wallace, Keep America Beautiful

Plastic pollution links

National Geographic 
WE MADE PLASTIC. WE DEPEND ON IT. NOW WE’RE DROWNING IN IT.

phys.org 
Beyond the oceans—microplastics pollute rivers and lakes, too

inlandwaterwaysinternational.org 
Prevent plastic pollution in waterways

Adopt-A-Drain 
A initiative to keep trash out of the waterways

Other links

The Irish Times
Talking rubbish: what makes people litter?

End Littering
Keep America Beautiful