I don’t want to make any kind of broad assumption. There may have been a few reusable steel water bottles at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28.
I have a dream of a land where single serving plastic water bottles are socially unacceptable and events such as this provide free potable water straight from a tanker truck.
A sad fact that defenders of the plastic bag will often use as a comeback is this: The majority of plastic waste in the oceans of the world comes from commercial fishing. I’m not sure what the actual percentages are and I’m guessing that nobody else is either. I did see way too many tangled up nets on the shore in Tunisia.
I spent a lot of my youth trout fishing in the wilderness of Nova Scotia. I remember seeing some plastic waste from recreational fishing as well. Tangles of fishing line, and snagged lures weren’t a surprise. I was pretty judgmental towards the people who tossed the packaging for their fishing gear in and around the lakes and streams and even more so towards the ones who left a pile of garbage from an overnight stay.
Sport-fishing involves some self imposed handicaps and some that are put in place by governments. If you are a fisherman, try to do it without adding to the already disturbing amount of plastic waste in our environment.
“In most preschools, you find mainly girls playing with dolls in the houskeeping and dress-up corner, while boys build with blocks and play with trucks. Teachers and parents unconsciously promote these stereotypes.” – Dolls, Trucks, and Identity: Educators help young children grow beyond gender [http://www.4children.org/issues/1997/november_december/dolls_trucks_and_identity/]
I would love to see a study of kids that did not have a ready access to representative dolls in childhood. Does such a group even exist?
Here we see a typical example of washed up plastic. Something about the density and shape of plastic bottle tops seems to make them one of the most common objects in beach litter. Recycling these tops is less economical than recycling PET plastic bottles. Many municipal recycling schemes do not even accept them. I can’t think of very many ways to reuse them effectively. The best option for consumers is to reduce the number of plastic bottle tops that they ‘consume.’ I try to cut my consumption of bottled soft drinks down to almost nothing. When local lemons are in season, I make lots of lemonade with sugar that comes packaged in paper, lemons that come packaged in lemon peels and water that comes from the tap. Actually, just about any kind of whole fruit can offer the sugar boost that people are craving when they buy a bottled beverage. We generations of effective advertising to thank for the high consumption of bottled soft drinks that seems normal to so many people around the world.
Nylon rope has almost completely replaced natural fiber rope because of its durability. Take a long walk on the beach and you will probably find some pieces of nylon rope.
Rope made from natural fiber like hemp and cotton are better for some purposes and just as good for many others. For any purpose that puts lives on the line, use whatever is recommended by experts. For less important uses, try natural rope first. I even make my own rope from rags. It is pretty easy and it works great. I wouldn’t go mountain climbing or yachting with the stuff, but I’m not doing either of those things anyway.
I have lived on a Mediterranean Island so long that I can spell Mediterranean right the first time. You know I see more than my share of these cheap plastic toys. I honestly think that taking a field guide to marine life to the beach and spending some time searching for cool stuff with your kids would provide better entertainment. We found a fossilized shark’s tooth a few years ago.
I’ve just finished reading a fascinating account of some personal direct action from a Canadian who is living and working in Morocco. Robbin Yager provides Tours and Treks in Morocco. One day she decided to roll up her sleeves and start clearing plastic trash out of some of the dry riverbeds in that country.
Here is a summary from her page on direct action:
Over the 10 years I’ve been living and working in Morocco, I’ve seen plastic grow from a few bags blowing across the Sahara, to clogged rivers and watersheds everywhere, from a few bags left by roadsides to huge dumps into ravines and gorges. In developing countries where information is not readily available to citizens, it can take governments a long time to develop solutions for problems. I believe people learn and are encouraged by example. Tourism is very important in Morocco. As a tourist anyone can make the problem seen and heard most easily by taking direct action. And I have to add, it feels so very good to pick up that first bag!
I have never undertaken any trash cleanups as ambitious as hers. When I was in Tunisia, I would walk for a few kilometers on the beach and pick up as much as I could carry. I always worried about where this trash went after I placed it in the dumpsters. Recycling in that region was pretty much limited to those few items that were profitable such as corrugated paper and plastic beverage containers. I was once confronted by a guard as I approached the fence of a beach resort while picking up garbage. I didn’t have the command of the language that it would take to make a nuanced response when I was asked what I was doing. This was a tense and awkward moment and it was discouraging.
When I first moved to Malta five years ago, I spent the first month living in a cheap apartment on the outskirts of a resort area. There was a lot of litter. Whenever I was putting our recyclables and garbage on the curb, I would always spend some time adding to our allotment from the stuff that was lying around outside. One day, a British expat across the street was laughing at me and telling me how futile it was to pick up trash. I think his words were ‘You’ll never get t all.”
I will never get it all but I still make a point of getting some of it. I am not a strong swimmer, so when the rest of the family is snorkeling in the deep I dive around in the shallows picking up ice cream cups and coke bottles and plastic bags and bendy straws. When I have gathered an armload of trash, I usually have to walk to a receptacle that is conveniently located next to businesses that cater to tourists. The big sunglasses that are in vogue prevent me from accurately gauging the looks that I get from these tourists. I have never had anyone join me.
Littering is one a a handful of social and environmental issues that I keep my nose out of when I am a guest in a foreign country. I do keep up with the local news and I quietly cheer on any local people who are speaking up about those issues. Tunisia has an official mascot for environmentalism. It is a cartoonish looking fennec fox that is often mistaken as a mouse by tourists. Malta finally has a real tax on plastic bags. Tourists sometime grumble and pay the Euro 0.25 per bag. Locals use reusable bags or sometimes cardboard boxes.
I think spending some time picking up litter while you are on vacation is a great idea. If you want to plan a vacation around cleaning up plastic trash, Hawaii sounds like the perfect place.
Use Less Plastic from TakePart on Vimeo.
This cause is really starting to gain some attention. There is now a big flashy site called Save My Oceans with a page devoted to the issue of plastic waste. I would love to see some statistics later on to see how much real reduction results from all of our efforts.
You see a lot of fancy gadgets out there for making juice. The famous one is called the POWER Juicer. I use a basic glass orange juicer and it’s a pretty good workout for my forearms and wrists when I make lemonade for a family of five. I bought mine for a Euro.
Proponents of big expensive machines will say that they need it to make juice out of carrots and other hard and less than juicy produce. I am pretty sure you could eat the carrots raw in less time than it would take to clean your POWER juicer. Nutritionists will tell you that whole fruits and vegetables are better than juice. I will tell you that expensive hard to clean juice making appliances are a waste of money and resources.
