Enough with the garbage….

Time for us to clean up our act...Jeff with only part of the haul....

This is a note I got from my friend Stephanie about what she & her husband Jeff have been finding along the roads….I think it’s a pretty cogent call to clean our act up. Here’s more:

Dear Ian,

A couple weekends ago my husband and I spent close to six hours cleaning up the litter on Wold Road from San Juan Valley Road to Bailer Hill Road.  On that roughly 2.5 mile stretch, we picked up 242 pounds of trash, recyclables separated from garbage, and a 5-gallon bucket of paint.

Is this what we want our island to look like? No!!!

By far, the majority of what we picked up was cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles, plastic bags, and plastic food wrappings.  Supposedly aluminum cans take 80 years to 500 years to break down; glass takes anywhere from 500 years to 1,000,000 years because it doesn’t really decompose – it just erodes, like beach glass.  But it’s the plastics that are the worst.  Plastic NEVER decomposes; it only breaks into smaller, colorful pieces which attract birds, wildlife, and marine life (if it reaches the sea).  They mistake it as food, and of course die quickly with a bellyful of ingested plastic.  They can’t live on it any more than we can.  Like Captain Charles Moore, the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean garbage patch says, “Plastics are like diamonds – Forever!”

I urge everyone – islanders and visitors alike – to cut down on their use of plastics.  Start with the simple things: purchase a stainless bottle and refill it with water, tea, juice as needed.  You’ll save money in the long run, and the beverage will be much better for being free of the chemicals that leach out of the plastic.

Then start cutting back on your use of plastic bags – grocery bags, ziplock bags; there are plenty of reusables on the market, and again, you save money in the long run.  Retailers – can you please discontinue the plastic shopping bags once your current supply is exhausted?  Compost and recycle to cut down on the number of bags needed to dispose of waste.  Buy local produce – it doesn’t have to be transported in plastic containers.  Ask your take-out food supplier to use cardboard or paper, or bring your own reusable container.

You may ask if we gathered up all that litter in plastic trash bags.  Unfortunately, yes – we had no alternatives at home.  Now I’m wondering if there are lined gunny sacks to use in the future, but I’m also hoping there won’t be as much to pick up next time!

Stephanie Prima-Sarantopulos

That's from only 2.5 miles of road....

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