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Are you trashy?
By Loraine Lsc Creations
Do you litter? If so, you are costing towns a lot of money to clean up after you. Also, the damage that can be caused by your littering can be very harmful. For example, I live in a country setting and the road that goes by my house gets litter everyday. From disposable baby diapers to beer cans can be found along the road. So, everyday I walk about 3 miles picking up after someone that is just to lazy to take care of their trash. All of this trash if left could cause my water well to become contaminated, but people don't think about that. There is no excuse for littering. Across from my house is all state land which people think they have the right to come out and dump whatever they feel like dumping. This has ranged from chairs, TV's, microwaves, toilets, snow blowers, lawn mowers, tires and just plain bags of trash. My neighbor and I have pulled trash and litter from the forest and disposed of it ourselves. This has saved the state and our town money, but I or my neighbor had to foot the bill. One year we did work with the town because the trash was so bad. We pulled out the junk from the woods and left it along side the road and the town sent a truck up to pick it all up. Then we found farther back into the woods a pile of trash that was horrible. Within the trash was a portable cooler, when I kicked it over there was a name on it. I called the police and had them come out and investigate the area. Within an hour they were escorting the person out to the forest that owned the cooler. Needless to say they had to clean up the entire area. Their excuse was they sold the cooler in a yard sale....to bad! There is no excuse for littering. Below are a few facts concerning litter. Green Eco Services Who Litters
75% of Americans Admit to Littering within the last 5 years.
Most common litter offenders- Men between 18-34 years
Smokers
People who eat at Fast Food places at least 2x per week
Drives more than 50 miles/day
People who go out for entertainment at least 1x per week From American The Beautiful: Litter cost communities. Clean communities have a better chance of attracting new business and residents and tourists. Long term less revenue to city, county and state coffers, meaning higher taxes. Litter hurts people. Every year there are numerous vehicle accidents caused by litter. People in these accidents are injured and sometimes even killed in their attempts to avoid litter in the roadways. Young children fall on litter in playgrounds, get cut and need medical attention. Litter also harms plants and degrades natural areas. When garbage is dumped, it can kill or stunt plant growth. Few people think about the harm to natural areas from litter. Litter kills or injures animals. Many small animals crawl into bottles or jars and get stuck and slowly starve to death. Animals get caught in plastic six pack rings, plastic bags, fishing line and a multitude of throwaways. Birds that are stuck, can’t fly away from danger. Sometimes animals caught in six pack rings are strangled as they grow too big for the opening. Animals get cut, infected and die. Every year, millions of birds, fish and animals die from litter. Litter is a problem that can be controlled. Education is an important tool. People who are aware of the dangers of litter often make more of an effort to always put their trash the correct place. They also spread the word to others they see littering and teach them to dispose of garbage the right way. Community clean ups encourage people to take pride in their community and keep it clean. Quick removal of litter keeps it from growing into an unmanageable dump site. People can make a difference. Litter can be conquered. Litter carries Germs: Scavengers, such as rata are drawn to lots of litter. Rats are carriers of many types of diseases that make people ill. Litter is a problem with Farmers and Ranchers; Cattle and other animals can die from ingesting metal and other substances such as ground up glass. Repairs to machinery jammed by trash, tires damaged by broken bottles. means downtime and lost crops. Litter harms water quality : Careless dumping of hazardous waste seeps into surrounding soil and cause ground water pollution. Litter is Expensive: The amount of money being spent picking up litter could be used in repairing roads, hiring more fireman and police. Economic Value of wasted used containers
In 2005, the forgone scrap value of 135 billion wasted beverage bottles and cans exceeded $2.1 billion. This means that had these containers been recycled instead of trashed, they would have been worth over $2.1 billion on the market.
The most valuable component of unrecycled beverage containers was the 55 billion discarded used aluminum beverage cans (UBCs), weighing in at about 810,000 tons. The scrap value for UBCs averaged about 75¢ per pound in 2005, and has already broken the $1/lb mark in 2006. Had these 55 billion cans been recycled, they could have generated as much as $1.2 billion in revenue. By comparison, Quebec’s Alouette group recently spent US$1.23 billion to increase the annual capacity of the Sept-Iles aluminum smelter from 245,000 to 550,000 tons.
Three billion pounds of #1 PET plastic bottles were also land filled, littered, or incinerated. At an average market value of almost 22¢, this would have fetched $675 million had it been recycled. There is a strong market demand for reclaimed PET, since PET imports by Chinese and Asian buyers continue to grow. Domestic PET reclaimers would also benefit from an increased supply of plastic bottles, because for the last two years, they have been having increasing difficulty meeting their feedstock needs due to constricted supplies and high prices. Were the amount of PET collected in the U.S. to increase dramatically, new business opportunities and jobs could be created for American industry.
#2 HDPE bottles–used for natural juices, water and milk jugs, and for detergent and other personal care items—are even more valuable than PET, averaging 31.2¢ per pound in 2005. Fewer of them are purchased and discarded, however, so the total wasted market value was $259 last year.
Glass bottles. About 7 million tons of glass bottles are wasted in the U.S. annually. Scrap prices vary tremendously depending on collection and processing methods, and on proximity to market. Bottle and fiberglass manufacturers value quality, so uncontaminated color-sorted amber or flint bottles from a deposit state, for example, might command as much as $65 per ton from a processor in the Midwest, California, or the Northeast. Green glass is generally less valuable because green bottles are only produced in a couple of locations in North America. Color-sorted glass from dual-stream curbside programs might fetch $25 per ton, while mixed-color glass from dual or single stream programs may only be worth $5 per ton. If the curbside mix is highly contaminated, or if there is no glass plant close by, it may be worth nothing at all–leading to its use as an “alternative daily landfill cover.” With these variations in mind, the value of glass that is currently being wasted nationwide ranges from about $30 to $400 million per year. |
LSC Creations
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
LSC Creations
Unique hand-painted gifts-home decor
www.lsccreations.com
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