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What is the impact of all the littering that
individuals do, largely from their cars and on highways? How can we
strengthen laws to prevent it?
Environmentalists consider litter a nasty side effect
of our convenience-oriented disposable culture. Just to highlight the scope
of the problem: California alone spends $28 million a year cleaning up and
removing litter along its roadways. And once trash gets free, wind, and
weather move it from streets and highways to parks and waterways. One study
found that 18 percent of litter ends up in rivers, streams, and oceans.
Cigarette butts, snack wrappers, and takeout food and
beverage containers are the most commonly littered items. Cigarettes are
one of the most insidious forms of litter: Each discarded butt takes 12
years to break down, all the while leaching toxic elements such as cadmium,
lead, and arsenic into soil and waterways.
The burden of litter cleanup usually falls to local
governments or community groups. Some U.S. states, including Alabama,
California, Florida, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia, are taking
strong measures to prevent litter through public education campaigns and
are spending millions of dollars yearly to clean up. British Columbia, Nova
Scotia, and Newfoundland also have strong anti-litter campaigns.
Keep America Beautiful, the group known for its
“crying Indian” anti-litter TV ads of bygone days, has been
organizing litter cleanups across the U.S. since 1953. KAB has a strong
track record of success in litter prevention, though it has been accused of
doing the bidding of its industry founders and supporters (which include
tobacco and beverage companies) by opposing many mandatory bottle- and
can-recycling initiatives over the years and downplaying the issue of
litter from cigarettes. Nonetheless, 2.8 million KAB volunteers picked up
200 million pounds of litter in KAB’s annual Great American Cleanup
last year.
A more grassroots-oriented litter-prevention group is
Auntie Litter, which started in 1990 in Alabama to help educate students
there about the importance of a clean, healthy environment. Today the group
works internationally to help students, teachers, and parents eliminate
litter in their communities.
In Canada, the nonprofit Pitch-In Canada, founded in
the late 1960s by some hippies in British Columbia, has since evolved into
a professionally run national organization with a tough anti-litter agenda.
Last year 3.5 million Canadians volunteered in PIC’s annual
nationwide Cleanup Week.
Doing your part to keep litter to a minimum is easy,
but it takes vigilance. For starters, never let trash escape from your car,
and make sure that household garbage bins are sealed tightly so animals
can’t get at the contents. Always remember to take your garbage with
you on leaving a park or other public space. And if you’re still
smoking, isn’t saving the environment a compelling enough reason to
finally quit? Also, if that stretch of roadway you drive every day to work
is a haven for litter, offer to clean it up and keep it clean. Many cities
and towns welcome “Adopt-a-Mile” sponsors for particularly
litter-prone streets and highways, and your employer might even want to get
in on the act by paying you for your volunteer time.
For more information: Keep America Beautiful, www.kab.org; Auntie Litter, www.auntielitter.org; Pitch-In Canada, www.pitch-in.ca.
Send questions to Earth Talk, care of E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com.
For more information: Keep America Beautiful, www.kab.org; Auntie Litter, www.auntielitter.org; Pitch-In Canada, www.pitch-in.ca.
Send questions to Earth Talk, care of E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com.
