As a person who has been involved in river clean-ups and educating children about how trash ends up flowing into our rivers and streams for the last six years, I found it very disheartening to roll back into town on Monday morning, after spending yet another glorious weekend on the river, to see bottles, cans and an assortment of plastic littering the entire length of Providence from around the football stadium and throughout the downtown area.
When will people realize they are not only hurting the earth by doing such mindless things, but in due time, are causing themselves harm? I read on OpenDoorWorld.com about how the plastic breaks down into tiny pieces, and all of the aquatic animals that eat plankton are in turn eating PCBs, destroying their immune systems, passing it up the food chain, and causing a 300 percent rise in Autism in children.
Think about the bigger picture here, if all of that trash doesn't get picked up, during the next big rain, it will flow downstream, into the gutters, into our storm drains, into our river and streams, and ultimately into the ocean where there is an island of plastic the size of Texas, and growing ... breaking down into persistent and harmful environmental pollutants.
I spoke with someone from MU recently about what I saw, and I was relieved when he told me about all of the efforts being made to help mitigate this problem. They are doing everything from supplying 900 trash cans and recycle containers, to spending more money on clean-up efforts, to physically handing out trash and recycle bags to tailgaters and educating them. To all of the football fans out there, use your education and become part of the solution, and not the problem! Please pick upand pack out your trash.