I never thought we would get one, but we did. Our family recently inherited a dog. An older one, but very well behaved. She is exceptionally well trained and quiet, which I love. Our kids still cannot believe that we have this thing in our house. Not as spry as she once was, she stumbles from time to time, but one thing is for certain: she loves getting out on walks and beach runs.
Last week we set off on our normal beach walk. I parked the van, turned off the ignition and hopped out. In my first couple of steps, I walked through a pile of toilet paper. A couple of words came out of my mouth and then it struck me, I had a new article to write.
The second thing was that some people just do not give a s%^&.
Trust me, I get it. I know all about the awkward anxiety when the call of nature hits and you are not near a toilet. It can strike with blunt force and be quite unforgiving. This is not my first rodeo. The difference is I have never left my remnants visible. I always make sure to cover them up or bury them, even if I am out in the middle of nowhere. Digging a hole and covering it up seems easy enough.
Not for this fellow though.
Nope. Our walk started out this way and my brain wandered with ideas.
Let’s take a quick look at the history of sanitation:
4000 BCE: Early sewage pipes developed from clay emerge.
2800 BCE: China develops systems for wells and clean water.
2700 BCE: Toilets and proper disposal systems.
500 BCE: Athens declares waste must be transported beyond city limits.
Rome: Complex sewer systems connect to public baths and washrooms.
Middle Ages: Wastewater is used for irrigation of crops.
Modern era: Clean water acts protect waterways from pollutants.
Today: Sanitation is recognized as a fundamental human right.
The world population hits 8.3 billion. We add about 70 million people every year. I remember the world hitting five billion when I was about five.
In Canada:
Roadside recycling pickup begins in 1981 with blue bins. What year is it in Haida Gwaii or British Columbia? The dark ages?
Roadside garbage pickup begins in the early 1900s.
Canada invents the garbage bag.
Prior to roadside removal, most items were burned, buried or reused.
From 2002 to 2022, solid waste generated increased from 5.8 million tonnes to 36.5 million tonnes. Thank you, online sales.
Now let’s suppose we diligently put our waste, cigarette butts, tires, wrappers, etc., into garbage bags and the garbage truck takes it to the dump, where it is immediately buried with soil. Sounds poetic.
It is not.
We could take a deep dive into why, but let’s keep it simple. It is obvious that we miss putting a morsel or two of garbage into the safe containment area, and that is what creates our litter problem. Just walk around town and you will see where we are at.
Now let’s add our geographic reality. We are exposed to consistent heavy rain. Where does this water flow, and what does it carry with it?
Where do you think the yearly accumulation of cigarette butts goes? Or bottles, bags and wrappers?
No one is out there collecting them.
It is not rocket science. Every kid who plays in puddles on the schoolyard knows that water flows downhill, straight into the sea.
The same sea where we gather our food. Fish, clams, kelp. All of it comes from the ocean.
Is the true solution to pollution dilution?
Here is a number: around 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded worldwide each year. I do not know the statistic for Masset. Sorry. It is a lot though.
I am not 100 per cent sure, but I could make some assumptions about how these make their way to the ground and are forgotten about. It seems simple to fix, yet it still prevails.
Eventually, our liquid sunshine flushes them downhill and over the cliff into the sea, where sea life fights with them or eats them. The ones that are not eaten leach chemicals that are absorbed into the food chain. Then we eat that life.
In addition to cigarette butts, there is the newer phenomenon of microplastics. Broken-down plastics from everything from bags to facial soaps. These are beginning to show up in our food chain.
Microplastics have a porous surface, which can act like a magnet for other chemicals.
In a newer study from Portland State University, researchers are classifying microplastics into several categories using bivalves, also known as razor clams, to collect data.
I guess we are in dire times if we need to eat plastic.
Long story short: pick up your trash and dispose of it properly.
As for me and my dog walks, those will continue as long as she wants to head out on adventures. Next time I will bring a garbage bag with me. Picking up one or two pieces of garbage every walk does not seem to be curing the pandemic.
