Protecting our communities and ecosystem from the invasion

When I was growing up, my dad would take the newspaper to work with him, and read it at lunch and during breaks. I would enthusiastically greet him at the door, wrench the paper from his hand on his arrival, and run for the living room with it. I'd flip through the pages until I found the comics, and one of my favorites was Mark Trail. If you aren't familiar with the comic strip Mark Trail, he was a game warden who protected the environment from people bent on destroying it. He would often do this by beating someone senseless with his fists, which is probably why your local newspaper doesn't publish it anymore.

I'm not sure if it was Mark Trail, or my observations later in life that opened my eyes to the damage people do to the environment with their ignorant, and sometimes willful acts. My honey and I have sea kayaked many areas from Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. We mostly paddle in the littoral zone. This has nothing to do with literature, it refers to the tidal areas and wetlands along the coast. We've also vacationed from Trinidad to Canada, sometimes sailing in the waters, sometimes birding while walking, and the presence of garbage is the same everywhere, with the worst of it near populated areas and shipping channels.

By Piotrus (Own work)
via Wikimedia Commons

What strikes me the most about every paddle, is the amount of trash that is present miles from the nearest road. This includes cigarette butts (it's easy to blame people who fish, but they'd have to chain smoke in large groups to generate this much of stuff), plastic bags. and all types of stuff you'd see on the side of the road. While enjoying water activities in New York Harbor, we've seen "Bronx Squid" a regular "species" that resulted from the discarded instruments of safe sex practices in poorly lit areas of NYC. Showering becomes a ritual to look forward to after a day on the water. Most of this trash finds its way from the street, into a storm drain to a stream or river, and eventually into the littoral zone.

The littoral zone is pretty amazing to experience. It contains a very diverse range of plants, animals, fish, and other things whose classification is beyond my scientific depth. Fiddler crabs are always interesting to sneak up on. They have one huge claw, and a small one, and wield their large claw like Darth Vader using his light saber. Of course the plastic bags, bottles, and flotsam (or was it jetsam?) floating in the water, and enmeshed in the vegetation impacts the ability of these species to thrive. 

Where does it all come from? the vast majority of the storm drains in our communities empty into streams and rivers, and eventually end up either in lakes, or in the case of our watershed in Oradell, and most of Bergen County, the water ends up in the Hackensack River. This river empties into the littoral zone - which in this case is Newark Bay. Little is done to capture the garbage that people toss from their cars, blow from the bed of their pickup trucks, or are discarded outside the convenience store. The density of population increases as we near the bay, as does the volume of trash. Our rain water run off has become a secondary garbage can for many people.

A recent study showed that there are 250 billion plastic fragments in the Mediterranean Sea. Keep in mind that I don't believe every study, since many have a desired outcome, and data can be skewed by the research tool, the researcher, or the pool selected. So I automatically cut this number in half, and at 125 billion pieces, it is still a real lot. 

By Kyle Moore (Own work) [Public domain]
via Wikimedia Commons

The wrapper we drop on the ground, blows from the back of our pickup trucks, or falls from our garbage can at the street, ends up somewhere. Somewhere we generally can't see it. What we don't see, doesn't exist. Except it does exist, it just exists in a place where it impedes the health of a vast section of our food chain.

If you see someone littering, rat them out. Riverkeeper and Bergen County have a system in place to do this. If you see someone littering, call the Hackensack Riverkeeper Watershed Watch Hotline at 1-877-CPT-BILL (278-2455) with the date, time and location of incident as well as the vehicle make, model, color and license plate number. There is a similar system in place in Rockland County, NY, and I was a top contributor. The county sends out a warning ticket, and the person may think twice next time they have a little wrapper in their car that is bugging them so much they feel the urge to toss it out. 


So please put the wrapper in your pocket until you find a garbage can. If you smoke, use the ashtray in your car (or field strip it) instead of flicking it out of the window. Cigarette butts aren't easily biodegradable, and they look strange in our coastal water among the organisms that live there. Don't try to stuff your garbage onto the top of a full garbage can on the street. Bag your garbage before it goes to the curb. Pick up litter when you can, and dispose of it. The world will be a better place for all of us by following these simple actions.