Each year, volunteers haul trash from our rivers; I hate this event
By Andrew Fisk
For 24 years, the Connecticut River Conservancy has hosted the “Source to Sea Cleanup,” and tens of thousands of volunteers have hauled over 1,167 tons of trash from the Connecticut River and tributary streams in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
But I’m going to let you in on a secret: I hate this event.
Don’t get me wrong. Seeing thousands of volunteers getting their feet wet and hands dirty for cleaner rivers by hauling out tons of trash and debris inspires all of us. The relationships built between individuals, communities and rivers are what this event is all about. But the fact that we need to host larger and larger cleanups year after year, decade after decade, just makes me mad.
And here’s another secret: Our trash problem is not the blame of litterbugs alone. Those businesses that created our singleuse economy must also be held responsible for their role in our trash crisis. It may seem easier to address litterbugs and teach people how to properly recycle and dispose of waste. But after 24 years of Source to Sea Cleanups and 50 years of Earth Days and anti-littering campaigns, it’s time to admit this approach isn’t working.
I am not saying we should just give up, and this is not a free pass for litterbugs. We all need to do our part in keeping our rivers clean by reducing how much we consume in the first place, reuse items as much as possible and properly recycle or responsibly dispose of what’s left. I hope the current crisis in recycling markets will drive innovation and begin a transition to a more robust circular economy that sees resources and not waste.
But even if there was never another piece of trash thrown into our rivers or oceans, we’d still have big problems. Our entire recycling and waste system is broken. Even those desperately trying to recycle properly are left with questions. Things like coated paperboard, plastic #1-7, and lids leave consumers confused about what is or isn’t recyclable. Add to this the differences between singleand dual-stream recycling, different rules between various recycling facilities, and the ever-changing recycling market and it becomes unfair and unrealistic to expect consumers to navigate this maze. This burden on consumers has created incentive for littering, dumping and improper recycling, and it is causing the whole system to break down.
Did you know this trash burden was deliberately placed on us, the consumers? In the 1950s, companies ran ads teaching consumers to dispose of single-use items (think paper cups and napkins, plastic bottles and so forth) rather than continuing to reuse items, as they’d done for generations. Then, anti-littering campaigns blamed us for starting pollution and told us we could stop it. We’ve accepted convenience built on plastic that has generated a tremendous amount of profit — and trash. It is time to invest in real solutions that recognize petroleum-based plastics are a failure and a single-use economy is fundamentally flawed. It’s time for the corporations who created and have been profiting from this problem to now help solve the problem through fundamental redesign of how our products are made and disposed of.
Personally, I dream of putting ourselves out of the trash cleanup business and get to the true source of the problem by overhauling the system. We have done it before. Remember lead paint? Smog? Burning rivers? We can do it again. We must, for the sake of our rivers and the oceans sustained by them.
I believe that you and I share a vision for our future: clean, healthy rivers that are full of life, support strong economies and thriving communities. Anyone is welcome to join the Connecticut River Conservancy at ctriver.org/cleanup in this year’s Source to Sea Cleanup in September.
We’ve come a long way, and our vision is within reach for us, our children and grandchildren. But we have to fight for it now.