I raced offshore boats in MI 1986 and forward. Ten cent bottle return was in force then . Kids cleaned up every bottle when it hit the trash can. Boy Scouts I think. So ten cents then it should be 20 now. You wouldn’t see many around. What’s ten cents worth 30+ years later? It should be raised. Thanks
I live on the water and garbage is always being trapped by the floating docks for me to pick up. They have an org here called SPLASH they go around collecting crap out of flat bottom and flat deck boats may be 4-8 people on the boat.
Enforcement is key. I think we need someone other than police to have authority to nab offenders and exact fines, something more like a combination of meter maids and rangers. I often volunteer for land and water based cleanups along our paddling rivers and the bike and hike trails that parallel them. We generally get 10 to 25 workers and the local “Tireless” group has a motorized barge. Just at the one area where we regularly work (it has a small paddlecraft launch site and fishing area but no motorboat ramps or docks) on a monthly basis we can easily fill a 40 yard dumpster in one work day. It is maddening that so often half or more of the volume is worn out tires and old car parts, which are dumped in this area by the truckload. We know that it is car repair and tire shops that are doing this, despite the fact that car owners are required to pay a tire disposal fee whenever we get new ones to the shop that dismounts them. It’s clear those shops pocket the fees and then don’t bother to recycle the tires or take them to a proper disposal site as they are supposed to be doing.
A lot of the dumping I referred to above happens on land adjacent to the trails that is owned by CSX (ConRail). We have asked them to add a locking gate to the dirt road that their maintenance trucks use to access the tracks because this is where trespassers drive into the woods to do the most egregious dumping. Mind you, CSX has been obsessive to the extreme in erecting fences in the area to block mountain bikers and even hikers from having free passage along the rivers via their wooded property near the rail lines. But they apparently couldn’t care less that people in vehicles drive onto their property and dump tons of garbage and scrap. Why should they care anyway, since we “tree-huggers” clean it up for them?
The railroads have been a real pain around here. Due to our terrain and the previous heavy industrialization of our area (which once hosted the densest bulk transportation network in the whole USA) a large proportion of the shoreline valley areas that are best for paddling access and for bike and hike trails are rights of way owned by the railroads. But even in areas where they don’t even use the tracks any more, and have not for decades, they get really pissy about anybody wanting to use it for recreational development. They aren’t the only ones – some of the strip mall owners are also averse to bike, hike and water trails, even though it has been proven that proximity to these resources enhances community value and desirability and drives up property values. The arguments are always “safety” and “liability”.
More horror:
-Saw a photo of a river in India yesterday. Not a small river but filled bank to bank with floating trash.
-Then there are the used up Plutonium rods that our government can’t figure out how to handle. The best solution, per the article, is to bury them way down. Nothing being done yet with stuff terrorists would love to have.
It keeps on coming.
Reported today, there are thousands of tons of WW2 munitions dumped off the coast of SC, including poisonous gas and radioactive material.
This came to light because the government wants to explore the area for oil and gas. SC is opposed to that because our beaches are a major source of income.
Imagine seismic charges set off in the midst of that waste field.
To revisit an earlier concern on this thread (about the release of helium-filled mylar or latex balloons). There in a crisis level helium shortage worldwide that has been growing yearly. I don’t believe it is being sold for “recreational purposes” like party balloons any more. Prices are up and the US actually has a Federal “helium reserve” that is critically low. So our profligate waste of at least one resource is coming back to bite us. By the way, helium is essential for MRI operations and for fiber optics. It is difficult to extract despite being one of the most common elements in the universe. The US government has put a hold on releases from the reserve for now. It is becoming real “unobtainium”.
That’s just for “food waste” (which I presume would be biodegradable plant and animal matter?) and “non-plastic” which must be metal, wood, paper or cloth? Plastic seems to be the worst trash and it doesn’t seem to be legal to dump it.
One reason why I would never go on a cruise is that I learned how they simply dump massive amounts of wasted food and garbage straight overboard. One of my friends went on one years ago when her inlaws paid for her and her husband to go when their kids were small. While she said it was great having somebody else handle the rug-rats during most of the day so she could relax, she was horrified by the waste. If one person requested an item at one of the evening dinner tables, the waitperson would bring a tray of it for all 8 people at the table. So there would end up more than 3/4 of the food being left on the plates and serving dishes, which she found out would all be dumpef overboard. Wretched excess and waste.
I remember rounding a point along the steep rocky coast of Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, looking forward to solitude on the white sand beach in a cove that I knew from the map was inaccessible by vehicle. We were greeted by a massive scree of domestic garbage that the residents and hotels apparently dumped from the ridge above, a moraine of disposable diapers and food packaging, covered with scavenging crabs and seagulls and stinking to high heaven. This on one of the otherwise prettiest islands in the Caribbean.
