“How, in our modern world, can we find our way to understand the earth as a gift again, to make our relations with the world sacred again? I know we cannot all become hunter-gatherers — the living world could not bear our weight — but even in a market economy, can we behave ‘as if’ the living world were a gift?”
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass
There are people who know how to do this. They monitor osprey nests and remove plastic from them. They organize litter cleanups. They advocate for their towns and cities to adopt practices that prevent much of the illegal dumping in parks; this generally comes down to limiting where people can drive in parks. Usually, people are not carrying couches and construction materials– they’re sticking them in the back of a vehicle and driving them to natural areas, day and night, rather than disposing of correctly. The places where this happens repeatedly are where there is no genuine restriction on vehicle access and/or where there isn’t much foot traffic. It becomes a cycle, because who wants to spend time in an area filled with garbage?
There are so many avenues open for people who decide that it’s not enough to say “this is sad,” for those who want to begin addressing the issue of humans who act both entitled and without adequate self-respect.
Registration has opened for those who want to lead a Source to Sea Cleanup on the last weekend in September (or any another date). Pick a spot somewhere in the Connecticut River watershed, pick a time, and then the Connecticut River Conservancy can provide you with guidance from there.
To paraphrase someone from that recent Where We Live show: every piece of trash removed is a life potentially saved.
At some point, while picking up trash year-after-year in the same spot, you might feel the rage sweep over you that despite all your efforts, people are still making a giant mess of the planet. Keep picking up the litter, and also learn about the Global Plastics Treaty and speak out to help make sure that come November, there is a robust treaty.
