Litter picking: community and biodiversity
Om Amriteshwaryai Namaha
Over the beginning of this year during the cold months while U.K. has been on lockdown it has seen a surprising and beautiful effort from my local community to clean up their towns and countryside.
Herefordshire has always led the way with its “Stop the Drop” campaign, starting with a litter forum a few years ago and many inspirational people who have set up their own community picks we have been meeting in our village to do our monthly picks. Lockdowns took the project to a completely new level, with more people with spare time on their hands and a social network group to encourage and support, many took the streets to clean their area.
In the city of Hereford they now have designated areas for volunteers which helps with responsibility and upkeep. With the ability to share pictures and accounts of the picks online a community grew up around these last few months to be proud to be part of despite the fact we couldn’t actually physically meet there was warm feelings of togetherness and heart opening as we shared our accounts and pictures online. One of the most alarming figures collected was the amount of masks picked in the present situation it has obviously increased astronomically. One month we totalled up to nearly 800 bags of litter between us, purple bags were to be seen everywhere, and one man with some help cleared the main roads from Hereford and is a regular site for passerby’s to toot our car horns at in acknowledgement. Friends involved other mothers and families picked the local Common, it was delightful to see the children involved also, as we are teaching them through setting an example.
The other aspect of litter is the effect of litter on the environment.
According to countless studies, littering has devastating effects on the natural habitats of animals, particularly marine life. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says that more than 267 species of marine animals are affected by plastic pollution that ends up in the sea.
Sadly, more than a million birds and 100,000 marine mammals die from ingesting or being strangled by plastic.
Littering also has adverse effects on humans and in our local community. Non-biodegradable waste such as styrofoam and plastics also worsens the effect of calamities, particularly floods, especially in cities and large urban areas. Small pieces of trash can easily clog up drainage systems.
Cigarette Butts and Single-Use Plastics are the most common litter and the most littered items often are made out of plastic, especially wrappers and other materials used for packaging. Aside from that, single-use plastics such as shopping bags and bottled water are also on top of the most littered items in the world.
Surprisingly, another item that people try to throw away recklessly is cigarette butts. Smokers often flick them away on the streets once they are done with it. However, much like plastics, these small cigarette filters can clog the street and worsen the flood. Moreover, they also contain harmful chemicals that can endanger marine and terrestrial life.
Plastic bottles take 450 years before decomposing completely.
If you think about it, plastic as a material is great. It’s sturdy and can withstand a huge amount of weight. It’s also waterproof and very light, which is very convenient for a wide variety of uses. However, the main problem with plastic is that it takes several centuries before it decomposes. Some plastic bags even take almost a millennia to disintegrate completely.
As humans, we seem to support behaviours that are believed to be the norm even if we know internally that they are wrong. For example, if people see a heap of trash on the street, it increases the likelihood that other people will also throw trash on that spot. In short, littering begets littering.
You may have read somewhere in your social media newsfeed that animals, especially birds and marine life, die from litter. Scraps and litters being found on the bellies of whales are real events that happened in many coastal areas around the world. A lot of marine life die from entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion of plastic and other kinds of trash.
While there are only a few studies that can estimate the total damage littering does to the environment, the crisis worsens every year. It is estimated that there are more than 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean. This number can only grow as 9 billion tons of trash makes its way into the sea each year.
If I put my litter in the bin, it can’t end up in the river…
False! Many people believe that river litter is solely a result of people throwing their rubbish into the water. However, this isn’t the case. Litter which is destined for landfill can ‘escape’ and enter our natural ecosystems. Rubbish can easily blow out of bins, or be jolted out of vehicles used to transport it to landfill. In order to reduce the amount of litter in our rivers, we need to stop consuming so many single-use products. Our society’s reliance on throwaway items is a scourge on our ecosystems.
With small changes in our lifestyle we can ultimately consume far less and then there is less rubbish and ultimately less litter in the system. Failing that we can take the initiative to take our litter home and “Stop the drop”.
“The creation and the Creator are not two” Amma constantly reminds us. It is this principle that informs and motivates the various environmental programs and ‘green initiatives’ of Amma’s GreenFriends “for when we see Mother Nature as the embodiment of God, we will automatically serve and protect her”.
May you be well, happy, healthy and full of green ideas!
Suryananda & GreenFriends UK
Acknowledgement: Thank you to ibanplastic.com for the facts and figures in this blog.
