Litter, garbage and trash

[Glenn MacGrady]

‘It’s disgusting’ small number of volunteers struggle to keep up with Lake Mead’s growing litter problem

Lake Mead’s blue waters and striking landscapes are a desert jewel in one of the most visited national recreation areas in the United States and it shows. Everywhere you look, you will find l…

www.8newsnow.com

What's the situation with litter, garbage and trash in places where you paddle, and can anything be done about it? Where is it so bad that you would advise not even paddling or camping there?

 

[UCanoe_2]

I really amazes me how people can be such slobs. Our local conservation organization looks after one small river which is entirely in one county. This year we collected almost 2 tons of trash and 204 tires. We get the usual plastic bottles and plastic wrappers from hay bales, as well as wire fencing, fence post, signs, most anything. The area is primarily agricultural, so we get a lot of farm trash. One year we picked up an entire fiberglass boat. We have gotten washing machines, and you name it.

There is a car embedded in the river bank at one spot which would take major excavation to remove. We use it as a stream gauge by comparing the water level to the headlights.

I'm convinced the river has a naturally reproducing population of tires. Our all time high year was 2015, when we removed 215 tires from only 8 miles of river. That's an average of one tire every 200 feet.

https://www.friendsofthemiddleriver.org/cleanups

 

[Cheeseandbeans]

I mostly see beer cans (almost always Bud Light) and cigarette butts at put ins, fishable sections of rivers, and campsites that are easily accessible. It does seem to be getting better over the years.

Bob

 

[Jmharrick]

I did a quick trip in French River Provincial Park this past summer. Every campsite I stopped at on the river sections above the rapids had cigarette butts in the firepit. The campsite I used on the first night had piles of trash in multiple locations outside of the fire pit that someone had attempted, and failed, to burn. My favorite is when you find a partially eaten can of tuna just sitting in a fire pit.

Below the rapids the campsites were all very clean.

 

[SouthernKevlar]

During my trip to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc this summer through France, Italy and Switzerland, I could not help but notice how clean the trail was. I also noticed that even the streets in the towns were clean. The shop owners would even go out periodically to sweep the sidewalks in front of their shops.
The people seemed to have a pride in keeping their environment clean. So I wondered why the typical American has so little respect for the land and our environment. Is it a simple matter of lack of respect for others and even for oneself? Or is it a deeper cultural issue within this country that allows so many here to trash their own environment?

 

[ppine]

Americans are slobs. We need to bring back the anti-littering campaigns from the 1970s and 80s. Cleaning up your mess does not seem to be intuitive, it has to be taught.

The Swiss are really neat and tidy, to the point that they make me uncomfortable. And don't ever be 5 minutes late or you are in big trouble. They are tightly wound. I like the Italians and French much better.

 

[Aslowhand]

Littering takes place all around the world. Swiss are slobs too. We just try harder to clean up after the mess is made. Be it by community workers or volunteers.

There is a nice river near where I live. The Aare river. It has a consistently fast current with only one class 2/3 rapid. In the summer, thousands of inflatable boats float down there every weekend. The take out is in Berne. On the way down there are quite a few nice places for a barbecue that get littered. Many of these cheap inflatable boats and other trash are simply left behind at the take out.
Groups of volunteers clean up the 25km/15 miles of river banks on a regular basis.
I wouldn't recommend paddling that river in high season.

There's another nice spot on the shore of the Lake of Thoune. Accessible by boat only. It gets littered as well. Some people leave their carbage and other people pick it up.


I doubt that there is a solution............

 

[Murat V]

One of my favourite day tripping spots used to be the Big East River. The upper section flowing down from Algonquin Park is very tricky to reach so gets few visitors. By the time the river reaches another Provincial Park (Arrowhead PP) it gets quite crowded. Downstream of this point, it has become an unfortunate dumping ground as the gentle current and lack of rapids have made it into a "float destination" for the party crowd. I made the mistake of heading down this area a few days after the Canada Day long weekend this summer. Shorelines were littered with abandon crap, punctured floaties, beer cans, and general party detritus. Whatever I could safely haul into the canoe made its way to a very convenient garbage bin placed by the municipality right at the takeout point. Here's a shot of the growing collection about half-way down the trip.



Most interesting thing was an unopened package of 2 dozen mini sugar donuts. It was just casually floating in the middle of the river. Donuts and paddling, who knew?

 

[MrPoling]

When I lived in West Virginia in the late '90s I paddled some of the rivers in the southern coal fields. This is basically the area south of Charleston and the west of interstate 77. Every put in was littered with all kinds of garbage, mattresses, appliances often including rotten deer carcasses. I started paddling with a screwdriver and adjustable wrench so I could take license plates off the cars in the river. One day I was snugged under a tall embankment, hidden by the overhanging trees, when a guy in a new Ford F-150 threw a sack of trash that landed 20 feet from my canoe.

Thankfully the rivers near me in the North Carolina Piedmont are pretty clean. My impression is West Virginia has been getting better too.

There's a lot that goes into this. Some people are just just lazy SOBs. Some people live in a bubble where nobody does any better. Some people are angry or bitter.

The economics matter too. Lots of places didn't have readily available free garbage disposal. I suspect that was a lot of it in the southern coal fields. If you don't have enough to go around it's pretty tempting not to pay for curbside pickup, or to drive 40 minutes over crappy roads to get to the county dump.

Water quality has been improving, and I think that helps. It's hard to tell people to take care of the river when the rocks are orange and the fish are dead.

Still, I shake my head a couple times a year when I come to a fishing spot where there's tangled line, worm bowls and beer cans. I just don't understand.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

West Virginia

Not litter or garbage stories, per se, but about stuff in West Virginia:

During the 80's, my club would have a week of whitewater rivers trip to West Virginia. I remember the water at the takeout on the Narrows section of the Cheat River being covered with an orange-yellow chemical scum. In our trip report I named the place Agent Orange Take-out. I didn't know what the source of the chemical pollution was, but a more knowlegeable member of our group said it was some sort of mine tailing discharge the name of which I forget. Thank goodness no one had to swim in that section river. I hope that's been cleaned up.

In the spring of '86 we paddled the Cheat River Canyon. Mile after mile, about 20 to 30 feet up in the branches of the trees lining the banks, there were entangled items of household furniture, bicycles, parts of houses, and all sorts of things. It was eerie. They were the remnants of the Killer Floods of 1985, which occurred on Election Day 1985. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:

"Flooding was worst along the Cheat River, where five of the six gauging stations set new discharge records. At Parsons, the river produced a discharge of 200,000 cu ft (5,700 m3), which was about 3.8 times the previous flood record, and 3.5 times the rate of a 100-year flood. At Rowlesburg, the Cheat River crested at 36.9 ft (11.2 m), which remains the highest on record as of 2013. At Hendricks, the Dry Fork of the Cheat River had a peak flow of 100,000 cu ft (2,800 m3), more than twice the previous record."

That flood rearranged many of the big rapids in the Cheat River Canyon.

 

[MrPoling]

 

[Blukanu]

Used to scuba dive N.Wisconsin lakes when I was younger. Tires and rusted out 55-gallon barrels are common on lake bottoms. Regular trash is plastic bait containers. Those things are all over the lake bottoms.

Problem is some areas make if so difficult to properly dispose of items, like tires for instance. One dropoff spot, other end of town, open one day a month in a 2-hour window during regular work hours, and a disposal fee. It’s like they are encouraging people to just throw scrap tires off a bridge.

Electronics. My town does a pickup once a year for one day. At least they do it on a Saturday but the line of cars of people trying to do the right thing wraps around many blocks. Or…you just disassemble that old tv and conceal the pieces in a trash bag for regular trash pickup.

 

[tketcham]

Problem is some areas make if so difficult to properly dispose of items...

I believe the USA should enact a requirement for manufacturers/distributors to include the cost of disposal for EVERYTHING we buy. Something similar to what is done in Germany. More expensive? You bet, initially, but it would better reflect the true cost of goods and materials. As it is, we're subsidizing the cost of disposable items by sacrificing our environment. When the true cost of single-use items and wasteful packaging is revealed in higher prices, there's likely to be a movement to using products that can be easily recycled and products that can be repaired or repurposed.

 

[clemency]

I'm convinced the river has a naturally reproducing population of tires. Our all time high year was 2015, when we removed 215 tires from only 8 miles of river. That's an average of one tire every 200 feet.

Here on the Connecticut you'll see swaths of the riverbank stabilized with old tires. Illegal now, but a thing back in the day. So we, too, see a lot of tires in the river and yes, it does feel like they naturally reproduce.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Problem is some areas make if so difficult to properly dispose of items, like tires for instance.

I believe the USA should enact a requirement for manufacturers/distributors to include the cost of disposal for EVERYTHING we buy.

I don't see how that would solve the problem raised by Blukanu. Adding an extra disposal cost to retailed products, such as is done in some states in the U.S. for beverage cans and bottles, may flow more money to the retailer, distributor and/or manufacturer, but it's not going to provide money to thousands of local governments to build waste/trash disposal facilities for big and bulky items. My town has done that via taxation.

 

[tketcham]

I don't see how that would solve the problem raised by Blukanu.

That's what my suggestion to include the cost of disposal for everything is addressing. It's a form of taxation to generate money to build and maintain disposal and recycling infrastructure so that everything can be disposed of with no after-sale cost. For example, those tires could be picked up roadside or brought to a local transfer station. No charge. And tire manufacturers, because they have to include the cost for that service in the price of their tires, would likely find ways to recycle or repurpose used tires to help recover some of that cost. In many (most?) cases, we don't recycle because it's not financially viable; having a pool of revenue to invest in recycling infrastructure would make recycling much more viable. So instead of just throwing most everything away, we'd figure out how to find value in used products and materials. And we'd be rebuilding/repairing products instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. "Durable goods" would take on a different connotation and become truly durable. A whole new economy would evolve based on skilled repair and maintenance.

 

[scoutergriz]

That's what my suggestion to include the cost of disposal for everything is addressing. It's a form of taxation to generate money to build and maintain disposal and recycling infrastructure so that everything can be disposed of with no after-sale cost. For example, those tires could be picked up roadside or brought to a local transfer station. No charge. And tire manufacturers, because they have to include the cost for that service in the price of their tires, would likely find ways to recycle or repurpose used tires to help recover some of that cost. In many (most?) cases, we don't recycle because it's not financially viable; having a pool of revenue to invest in recycling infrastructure would make recycling much more viable. So instead of just throwing most everything away, we'd figure out how to find value in used products and materials. And we'd be rebuilding/repairing products instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. "Durable goods" would take on a different connotation and become truly durable. A whole new economy would evolve based on skilled repair and maintenance.

sadly that doesn't seem to work well, Ontario charges a "tire disposal fee" on new tires yet garages still charge another "tire handling" fee when you replace them and leave the old ones, resulting in tires being dumped on roadsides, back lots and river accesses simply because people are unwilling or unable to pay that extra cost

 

[tketcham]

sadly that doesn't seem to work well, Ontario charges a "tire disposal fee" on new tires yet garages still charge another "tire handling" fee when you replace them and leave the old ones, resulting in tires being dumped on roadsides, back lots and river accesses simply because people are unwilling or unable to pay that extra cost

Sounds like it's not a viable program. The "tire handling fee" should be included as part of the initial disposal/recycling tax on the tire. People should be able to leave the tires with the dealer and the dealer would already have been reimbursed for disposal costs.

 

[ScottS]

One year, I took 50 canoe loads out of a favorite marsh. I learned that it was an accumulation of many years of stuff. For instance, plastic bottles are often several years old, they just survive so well (or awful). This shot is of a 200+ lb big lake buoy that had drifted into the cattails and was breaking up. I towed it to the nearest city boat launch, rolled it up the hill and left it in a parking spot. It took 3 months for the city to bring something big enough to move it.
Any plastic item is such a long lasting piece of litter that removing it makes a difference.

 

[scoutergriz]

Sounds like it's not a viable program. The "tire handling fee" should be included as part of the initial disposal/recycling tax on the tire. People should be able to leave the tires with the dealer and the dealer would already have been reimbursed for disposal costs.

that was the idea with the recycling tax, the "fee" was added by the actual retailers after the fact without government approval or intervention