It’s extremely difficult to walk down the street without seeing a bit of litter on the side of the road. Even in a rural town like were I grew up, it wasn’t uncommon to see tobacco waste haphazardly tossed onto lush green lawns. Furthermore, it’s no secret that littering has a negative impact on our environment, not to mention the fact that it is simply disgusting. Unfortunately, littering is not the only issue that is currently harming our environment. Over the course of the next three months, I will be focusing on the everyday activities that American Citizens do that negatively impact our natural world.
Littering is clearly an issue that is rampant throughout the United States, with over 51 billion pieces of foreign objects being blown around the side of our roadways each year. To put that number in perspective, that is roughly 6,729 items of litter per mile of roadway. Granted, much of that is less than 4 inches across, but it makes an impact nonetheless. Furthermore, not only is smoking in particular a disgusting thing to partake in (more about this particular environmental health concern in a later post), but it also creates more litter than any other activity. In fact, about 38% of all litter found on the side of highways and other roads is some form of tobacco waste. Following tobacco products are paper and plastic. Both of these items are not only products that could be thrown away properly, but items that could be recycled. So instead of having them be reused, they are ending up on the side of roads, laying in our front lawns, and running down our once beautiful rivers. Sadly, while it is simple to say that we aren’t guilty of this monstrosity, littering is far to easy to do. Specifically, over 76% of litter is created by cars passing by or by pedestrians roaming the street.
Not convinced? Well then lets take a look at how that dropped piece of McDonald’s wrapping takes its toll on you. The U.S. government spends over $11.5 billion dollars a year in its attempt to wage a war on littering. And unfortunately, that money doesn’t even get close to truly cleaning up our community. Furthermore, as American citizens, we all pay taxes (well, for now, our parents do), and this excessive cost that the United States government must fund is not doing any good for our wallets.
However, for all of you getting upset about these events, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are several wonderful organizations that are responsible for combating litter and the act of littering. One of these, perhaps the most renowned of the lot, is Keep America Beautiful. This is an organization that does numerous different activities under various categories to help America in particular stay clean. Their anti-litter campaign, known as “Littering Is Wrong Too,” is one program in particular that draws attention to the issues associated with littering. This subdivision of Keep America Beautiful focuses on establishing different events, missions, and advertisements to try and put a stop to littering. In fact, as reported by Keep America Beautiful, littering has decreased by 61% in the past 40 years. Now don’t get me wrong, that is a significant change, however it is clearly not enough completely rid our roads of pieces of garbage.
Sadly, though progress is being made, many individuals are still in denial about the state of our environment. As shown in this opinion article, published by a teenager from New Jersey, not all are onboard with taking a stand against littering. This teen, whose school wanted to punish the student body after recent problems with excessive littering, believes that the school board is over doing it. While this is certainly not something everyone should be punished for, it is an issue that needs to be addressed, especially with those in their youth. Considering children are very impressionable, not to mention the fact that they are the future of our country, it needs to be pressed upon them the seriousness of littering and other environment-destroying activities. Keep America Beautiful has also made an attempt to reach out to young individuals with their anti-litter campaign, “Littering Is Wrong Too.” This social-media driven program (which can be found here) involves allowing young adults and children enter what they believe is “wrong” onto their website, and then posting it with “Littering is wrong too” following the posts. This subdivision of Keep America Beautiful is especially geared toward children, especially with the added technology factor.
Furthermore, just as many individuals, if not more, believe that littering is a problem. This can be seen in several opinion articles written on the topic, including this one about cigarette butts and their harmful contribution to litter. The article was written by a University of Illinois student, whose campus went “smoke-free” on January 1, 2014. In this paper, the author addresses the supposed “exception” many smokers often feel toward the littering rule. Many find that disposing of their cigarette butts on the ground is not litter. However, it most certainly is. In fact according to this article, a campaign known as “Blooms Not Butts” collected almost 22 pounds of tobacco litter in a two-hour period. Fortunately, Keep America Beautiful also has a program geared toward tobacco littering, known as the “Cigarette Litter Prevention Program.” This branch of Keep America Beautiful mostly focuses on educating individuals about the excessive amount of tobacco litter, along with its most commonly found locations.
In conclusion, while there are many environmental concerns in today’s world, littering is clearly one of the most fixable. It is quite possibly one of the only problems with such an easy solution: simply dispose of your trash properly. While this environmental concern has continued to improve, and can be expected to improve further in the future, there is clearly more work that needs to be done. Outside of littering, many further environmental issues exist that need to be brought into light, and hopefully many will be looked at and responded to within the upcoming years.
Works Cited:
http://www.dailyillini.com/opinion/columns/article_07cb7416-45be-11e3-adda-0019bb30f31a.html
http://preventcigarettelitter.org/venues/city_centers.html
http://www.kab.org/site/DocServer/LitterFactSheet_LITTER.pdf?docID=5184
http://www.teenink.com/opinion/school_college/article/223077/A-Litter-Problem/
http://www.litteringiswrongtoo.org
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