Garbage
I went to the beach today with my family (my dog, my husband, and my 2-year-old daughter). As a family outing, it was very pleasant. We went to one of the several island beaches that neither locals nor tourists seem to visit. The beach is not accessible by road, and can only be visited by people willing to walk 200 meters to reach it. Hence, the beach is largely deserted. Neither boats nor moorings obscured the view. Native plants still inhabit the hillsides around this beach, and you can just barely make out a couple of houses in the distance. My daughter frolicked in the surf and giggled. My dog fetched balls obsessively (as usual). My husband and I facilitated these activities and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet.
Towards the end of our visit, I got out the empty bag I had brought for collecting garbage. (It seems I do this almost everywhere I go now.) At first, there did not seem to be much trash. Then, we started picking it up. Once my brain fixed on the "garbage" search image, I was seeing it everywhere. My bag began to fill up, but plastic drink bottles still littered the beach. Hundreds of drink box straws were wedged under rocks. Monofilament lines and nets were tangled around driftwood. We began to pick and choose what to take and what to leave behind. Those plastic straws are dangerous to marine life, but there were too many of them. We could never even make a dent in the amount of time we had. Milk jugs take up a lot of space in the bag, but they never decompose. We decided to fill up our beach bag with some of the cleaner trash, and so were able to take away all the drink bottles.
My husband hoisted our daughter and a dilapidated chair (large, but light). I carried the bags. As we headed up the trail, we saw more drink bottles and other garbage under the trees at the trail head, but we had to turn our heads away. Our arms were full. Our bags were full. We walked away.
Picking up garbage is always like that. I have been on beach cleanups with large groups, dozens of large trash bags, and a waiting boat to haul the garbage away. Always, we run out of time before we run out of trash.
Is this what our species is? We generate inconceivably large quantities of garbage. We throw on the side of the road, in the woods, into the water from our boats. It makes me feel guilty for living on this planet, for adding another person to it, for the KFC I bought for dinner last night.
Towards the end of our visit, I got out the empty bag I had brought for collecting garbage. (It seems I do this almost everywhere I go now.) At first, there did not seem to be much trash. Then, we started picking it up. Once my brain fixed on the "garbage" search image, I was seeing it everywhere. My bag began to fill up, but plastic drink bottles still littered the beach. Hundreds of drink box straws were wedged under rocks. Monofilament lines and nets were tangled around driftwood. We began to pick and choose what to take and what to leave behind. Those plastic straws are dangerous to marine life, but there were too many of them. We could never even make a dent in the amount of time we had. Milk jugs take up a lot of space in the bag, but they never decompose. We decided to fill up our beach bag with some of the cleaner trash, and so were able to take away all the drink bottles.
My husband hoisted our daughter and a dilapidated chair (large, but light). I carried the bags. As we headed up the trail, we saw more drink bottles and other garbage under the trees at the trail head, but we had to turn our heads away. Our arms were full. Our bags were full. We walked away.
Picking up garbage is always like that. I have been on beach cleanups with large groups, dozens of large trash bags, and a waiting boat to haul the garbage away. Always, we run out of time before we run out of trash.
Is this what our species is? We generate inconceivably large quantities of garbage. We throw on the side of the road, in the woods, into the water from our boats. It makes me feel guilty for living on this planet, for adding another person to it, for the KFC I bought for dinner last night.
posted by MegS | 8:55 AM
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