From Patrick Cooper.
LIVING in an Island with miles of beautiful coastline, I believe we all have a responsibility to keep it clean and as far as possible pollution-free.
Over the last two months I have been putting in practice miles for the ITEX walk, which I successfully completed last weekend. My point is not to boast about my walking efforts but to highlight a significant pollution problem, specifically litter on our cliff paths and walkways.
By far the biggest litter problem is caused by empty plastic water bottles that don’t find their own way to a bin. There have been many reports in recent months in the UK press highlighting the dangers and environmental impact of plastics on seabirds and marine wildlife. So why, if we are all so aware of such things in the media, is it still happening?
I would suggest three reasons: Ignorance (it doesn’t matter, other people litter); laziness (I can’t be bothered to find a bin); lack of appropriate bins, especially for collecting plastic bottles (which appear to be the only plastic recyclable here in Jersey, without tops, of course).
The ITEX organisers went to a lot of trouble to provide collection of empty water bottles for recycling and collected other rubbish separately. However, that still did not prevent plenty of walkers dropping their bottles along the route.
I must have collected at least 20 bottles along the way and dropped them off at the next checkpoint. At times I had five bottles on fingers and thumb on my left hand, the bottle tops in my pockets and my own water bottle in my right hand.
Now I know the walk is difficult, but how hard is it to carry an empty plastic bottle to the next check-point or bin? I also know that it is not only the ITEX walkers who are at fault here, the problem is much much wider.
The solution, as I see it, needs to address all three causes. Therev should be more publicity to foster a change in attitudes, perhaps with a ‘Make Jersey Greener’ campaign along similar lines to the ‘Clean Up Jersey’ campaign of a few years back using appropriate green recycling symbols, or even a catchy mascot-type character, such as ‘Green Bean’.
However, for this to really work, there is a need to provide appropriate facilities for recycling our rubbish on the move. Yes, there are rubbish bins around, but in our climate with a malfunctioning dinosaur of an incinerator, wouldn’t it be a good idea if all public bins gave you a recycling option? Surely this would cut down on the amount of assorted public rubbish being collected and would therefore mean less rubbish to be burnt.
If we all littered less and were able to recycle more, there would be far less mixed rubbish to be burnt, we wouldn’t need a super-sized replacement incinerator and our Island would be much greener all round. Dorian,
Rue Gombrette,
St John.
Litter is just the result of ignorance and laziness
From Patrick Cooper.
LIVING in an Island with miles of beautiful coastline, I believe we all have a responsibility to keep it clean and as far as possible pollution-free.
Over the last two months I have been putting in practice miles for the ITEX walk, which I successfully completed last weekend. My point is not to boast about my walking efforts but to highlight a significant pollution problem, specifically litter on our cliff paths and walkways.
By far the biggest litter problem is caused by empty plastic water bottles that don’t find their own way to a bin. There have been many reports in recent months in the UK press highlighting the dangers and environmental impact of plastics on seabirds and marine wildlife. So why, if we are all so aware of such things in the media, is it still happening?
I would suggest three reasons: Ignorance (it doesn’t matter, other people litter); laziness (I can’t be bothered to find a bin); lack of appropriate bins, especially for collecting plastic bottles (which appear to be the only plastic recyclable here in Jersey, without tops, of course).
The ITEX organisers went to a lot of trouble to provide collection of empty water bottles for recycling and collected other rubbish separately. However, that still did not prevent plenty of walkers dropping their bottles along the route.
I must have collected at least 20 bottles along the way and dropped them off at the next checkpoint. At times I had five bottles on fingers and thumb on my left hand, the bottle tops in my pockets and my own water bottle in my right hand.
Now I know the walk is difficult, but how hard is it to carry an empty plastic bottle to the next check-point or bin? I also know that it is not only the ITEX walkers who are at fault here, the problem is much much wider.
The solution, as I see it, needs to address all three causes. Therev should be more publicity to foster a change in attitudes, perhaps with a ‘Make Jersey Greener’ campaign along similar lines to the ‘Clean Up Jersey’ campaign of a few years back using appropriate green recycling symbols, or even a catchy mascot-type character, such as ‘Green Bean’.
However, for this to really work, there is a need to provide appropriate facilities for recycling our rubbish on the move. Yes, there are rubbish bins around, but in our climate with a malfunctioning dinosaur of an incinerator, wouldn’t it be a good idea if all public bins gave you a recycling option? Surely this would cut down on the amount of assorted public rubbish being collected and would therefore mean less rubbish to be burnt.
If we all littered less and were able to recycle more, there would be far less mixed rubbish to be burnt, we wouldn’t need a super-sized replacement incinerator and our Island would be much greener all round.
Dorian,
Rue Gombrette,
St John.
Article posted on 1st July, 2008 - 3.00pm