Pick It Up

Our environment is under attack. We have a president who wants to turn back the clock 50 years and undo decades of work that made the planet cleaner, safer, and healthier.  He doesn’t believe in global warming. He appointed an EPA Secretary who wants to essentially destroy the department. He wants to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. He wants to bring back coal. He wants to shrink the size of National Monuments to allow for development and mining. The world’s largest salmon fishing area in Bristol Bay, Alaska is being threatened by a mining company that says it sits in an area that could hold the largest gold and copper deposits in the world. The Gulf of Mexico has gotten two degrees warmer which allows for bigger, stronger hurricanes like Harvey that is crashing into Texas this weekend. Looking at the big picture can be too overwhelming. But we all have a level of personal responsibility.

On our recent visit to the Jersey shore I saw the evidence that many of us don’t care, or don’t think it’s important, to do their part in respecting the world around us. I’m talking about litter. The ultimate careless and maddening behavior. Cigarette butts dropped or thrown from cars on lawns and sidewalks. Water bottles, candy wrappers, and coffee cups collecting at the curb. They get caught up on storm drains that even have plaques warning that any trash that goes into the storm drain empties into the ocean. Hey, let’s go for a swim. I even saw a whiffle ball bat at one corner. I also noticed a girls’ bicycle stored at the side of our house. I thought it belonged to our new downstairs neighbor. He said it wasn’t his. He found it on our lawn, and thought it might belong to us. I felt littering had hit a new level. By the way, except for two flat tires, the bike was fine.

It’s not just at our beach communities. It’s everywhere. I picked a beer can on a tee box at a golf course. I couldn’t imagine drinking a beer, and just dropping it, and then hitting a drive down the beautiful green fairway. I’m willing to bet the guilty golfer wasn’t playing by himself. Either his fellow golfers were too embarrassed to call the guy out, or they didn’t care either. I keep thinking of Public Service announcement that used to run on TV back in the 1970s of the American Indian shedding a tear as he watched people throw trash on his country.

Litter destroys marine life, scars the landscape, and costs billions every year to clean up. A Keep America Beautiful study several years ago found it cost $11.5 billion dollars to clean up and prevent littering. Money that could be spent in much more constructive ways. The study also found litter has actually decreased since the 1960s. It was down 61% since 1969.The reasons vary from education, clean up efforts, changes in packaging that have reduced paper, metal, and glass litter. The study says plastic litter is up 165%. Much of that is water bottles that we use to hydrate and stay healthy, but don’t think about the health of the planet. But littering is more than an environmental problem. It’s a personal responsibility problem. Keep America Beautiful found 85% of litter is caused by individuals. It’s lazy, thoughtless, inconsiderate. We wouldn’t like it if someone threw their bottles, butts, bats, and even bikes on our lawn, yard, or sidewalk. It’s not hard. Pick it up.