Imagine All That Trash

Aren't we humans just something else? Trashing our environment. Literally.

Not only through the outcomes of (mis)using fossil fuels and sending great clouds of carbon into the atmosphere, imperilling the very air we breathe, the temperature of the oceans and in the process hastening the demise of impacted species whose habitat have been deleteriously impacted, but through the intemperance of our greed in the wasting of our finite resources, speeding our own potential demise through the dangers of continental flooding, food shortages and territorial shrinkage.

All right, we've got that covered, and environmentalists and politicians and ordinary citizens are all attempting in their own way to instill in one another a greater awareness and sense of responsibility in the hopes that scientific advances will pull us out of yet another dilemma we've placed ourselves in through our use and misuse of technologies impacting on everything about us.

Then there's the little matter of our collective habit of garbage-making. We produce an inordinate amount of garbage. Through, for example, packaging that we really don't need, and through the casual dumping of perfectly good and still-useful consumer products. The result of which is huge municipal garbage dumps groaning beyond their capacity to absorb any more discards of civilization.

And no communities want these huge garbage dumps with their off-gassing, their odours, their ugly presence in their areas. We make agreements with municipalities eager to charge high fees to accept garbage trucked hundreds of miles from their source, and dump our garbage in other hapless communities' areas for them to worry about and live with.

But there's worse: our propensity to carelessly litter. Doesn't sound like much, that simple word 'litter'. But the simple fact is, done in a large enough scale of mindless tossing away of detritus we're too lazy to find proper receptacles for disposal of, we've created another huge nightmare. Our oceans have become a refuge for all manner of urban debris, impacting on an already stressed biosphere.

Plastic bags, food wrappers and containers, disposable diapers, fishing nets, straws, shotgun shells, beverage bottles - and cigarettes have been tossed onto beaches where they find their way into our waterways. A report by Ocean Conservancy in the U.S. relates a "global snapshot of marine debris" collected by 400,000 volunteers in 104 countries in a single day.

Close to seven million pounds of trash - equal to the weight of 18 blue whales, collected from oceans, lakes, rivers and waterways in a single-day clean-up that took place in September 2008. "Our ocean is sick, and our actions have made it so" said the president of Ocean Conservancy. "We simply cannot continue to put our trash in the ocean. "The evidence turns up every day in dead and injured marine life, littered beaches that discourage tourists, and choked ocean ecosystems."

Canada, out of 104 participating countries ranked third in participation rate with 34,320 volunteers. Cigarettes and filters were found to be the most collected items. Recreational and shoreline activities in Canada created the most garbage identified as straws, beverage bottles, cups, plates, toys and shoes. So much for care for the environment.

As for "reduce, reuse, recycle", what's up with that? A complete mystery?