Pilgrims ruining parks

[Odyssey]

How often have you wondered in exasperation "What were they thinking?!" Who knows, but it's a good question. The answer might lend insight into the inner workings of the trash camper. Perhaps mental acuity isn't their strength but knowing what goes on in their pea brains might help in changing future errant behaviour. Laziness? Lack of respect? Ignorance? All of the above?
It's too easy to become soured to society and all the crap that goes on around us in our daily lives. As I've mentioned there are good people too out there (somewhere) but they won't make the 6 o'clock news. We all know what sells newspapers (besides sex) and it ain't good natured folk practising LNT in their tripping lives and paying it forward in their regular lives. You can tell my eyes barely brush over the morning headlines before delving deep into CT and other good news places.
I still believe education and positive reinforcement can win the day. Sure would feel good to see a trash camper getting their comeuppance but that guarantees nothing. Just might make them vengeful and stubborn on top of whatever they were before. LNT in the backcountry and our entire country (wherever you happen to live) has to become a) cool and b) easily achieved. There are no excuses for what we've all seen. It remains a challenge as how to turn a trash camper into a good camper.

 

[Black_Fly]

With higher population densities, the number of miscreants increases (I would argue their proportion does too) and resources become more precious to the enlightened people. Just normal use will stress resources more as we become one coast to coast shopping mall; the willfully ignorant among us need to be increasingly chastised, outcast, and heavily fined. Focus on the nice guys if you want, I'm taking the war to the pigs.

 

[Odyssey]

"Focus on the nice guys if you want, I'm taking the war to the pigs." BF

The nice guys become mentors and educators hopefully reversing an ugly trend, and contributing to a more enlightened generation to follow. But I too would love to pull a Dirty Harry every once in a while.

 

[Jim Dodd]

I'm Thankful I haven't caught some one trashing a campsite ! I'm afraid of what I might do ! I'm not one to turn the other cheek.

I'd regret it later !

Jim

 

[stripperguy]

Everything moves like a pendulum
after enough education sloppy and destructive campers will be corrected and/or cited

i remember seeing an ad in Field and Stream in the ‘60’s that encouraged “good woodsmen” to ALWAYS sink their cans!!

And I also remember paddling past the tent platforms in the ADK’s As a young boy and being disgusted by the lp tAnks rusting in the water and abandoned refrigerators
I only realized as an adult that I was on Little Long Pond, a very nice wilderness destination now

So it all runs in cycles...

 

[sweeper]

Last year I carried from Bonnechere up to Delano in APP. During the day I picked up several pieces of trash, saw a couple places where someone had relieved themselves right on the side of the trail, saw several places where an Orange canoe was dragged on the rocks, and lots of small footprints. When I got to Delano there where live trees cut, toothpaste spit in the center of the site under the crude table, 2 towels and a few other clothing items, trash in the fire pit, more small feet, and fresh orange paint scrappings on the rocks at the put-in.
These were made by campers from one of the large camps on the north side of Rt 60.
I get there are pigs that defile nature but this is a prestigious summer camp, what are they teaching their campers?

 

[jefffski]

I'm actually amazed there isn't more litter given the crowds in the near backcountry. In the water, I notice (and pick up) cans and bags that have fallen off power boats. At campsites here (Indian Arm, near Vancouver BC) where there is a permanent fire ban, I remove fire rings and burnt wood. Some say to leave them because people will make more, but I think that if they don't see any, they might not make a fire. Either way it's hopeless. Like hoping everybody will wear a mask indoors.

 

[Black_Fly]

I hear you sweeper. Worst camp trashing I ever saw was at a Boy Scout camp on Shade Lake in Quetico. Looked like there were no adults at all to rein in the heathens.

 

[Sweetfancymoses]

Just got back from a six night trip to the Boundary Waters (our Quetico trip got cancelled). We looked at half a dozen additional campsites and, I have to say, none of them were trashed. Worst 'offense' was a a pile of green branches with a fish buried in it. After hearing about 40% higher numbers of paddlers and other horror stories, we were apprehensive, but we had a great trip.

 

[Guest]

And people ruining the planet.

This is an exposed peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay. The plants are invasive Phagramites. The plastic debris is from idiots who would rather pay a buck for bottled water than spend $10 once on a Nalgene bottle.

IMG016 by Mike McCrea, on Flickr

There is a 100 yard stretch of the peninsula festooned with layers of those water bottles.

 

[scoutergriz]

Mike, look at the bright side- maybe the garbage'll choke out the invasives.....
yeah, I know, won't happen

 

[Black_Fly]

​ Near home. I walk my dogs down this road and it's a f__king mess the whole 2 miles. Mostly fast food and plastic bottles, beer cans, occasionally a mattress or couch. We carry garbage bags a few times a year, but it never gets to be less. My dogs have found KFC bags with bones. Too much indiscriminate breeding of poor stock.

 

[frozentripper]

To follow on from Mike's transcendent Plastic Bottles Amid Phragmites photo plus "people ruining the planet", and posts in this thread...

Found this report on the world's ten most plasticized rivers, the amounts of plastic thrown away unrecycled, littering landscapes and floating on oceans is beyond staggering.

None of these rivers are in North America, Asian and African rivers take the top ten awards. If you canoe on these rivers, chances are good you will see plastic. Measured in tons being added to the watershed each year.

River - MMPW (Mis-managed Plastic Waste) tons/yr

Yangtze 16,883,704
Indus 4,809,288
Yellow 4,098,569
Hai He 3,448,223
Nile 3,293,385
Ganges & Bramaputra 3,017,170
Pearl 2,515,374
Amur 2,086,763
Niger 1,989,695
Mekong 1,931,483

Over the last decade we have become increasingly alarmed at the amount of plastic in our oceans.

More than 8 million tons of it ends up in the ocean every year. If we continue to pollute at this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

But where does all this plastic waste come from?

Most of it is washed into the ocean by rivers. And 90% of it comes from just 10 of them, according to a study.

Rivers of plastic

By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/...%20the%20Niger

Original publication:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b02368

 

[Black_Fly]

Kinda makes me wonder why no one foresaw this outcome back when we were transitioning from paper and glass. My question is have we reached the point of no return, no salvaging a plastic free ocean and food chain?

 

[frozentripper]

Black Fly...

makes me wonder why no one foresaw this outcome

Methinks the outcome was known all along although maybe not to extent that the problem has grown to. During the seventies after I had sworn to carry out my duties faithfully as an Ontario civil servant working towards resolving environmental issues, there was broadly-based acknowledgement that recycling was a good thing and we all should move forward towards keeping things clean.

That did stay visible for some time, at least until other issues distracted attention away. Seventies' oil prices were going through the roof, combined with economic problems and taking care of that became a main initiative for years..

Business sales and profits and how to restore them to revitalize the economy meant that more efficient retailing was needed and quick and easy throwaway plastic packaging would help boost retail sales. Much more attractive than bulk bins and paper bags, resulted in faster sales.

So yeah, the economy was restored, plastic packaging production grew to keep up with the increased retail sales for consumers ignoring the need for recycling and reuse... shopping becomes entertainment..

In the meantime government started up blue box recycling claiming that blue-boxed plastics would be recycled. However, at least here in Ontario, it seems that only about ten percent of plastics, tops, can really be recycled so the government's green initiative claims to recycle plastics were not quite accurate, some would say a lie. Meanwhile, business profits continued to grow with plastic packaging offering attractive goods easily purchased and taken home before being thrown out and more being bought, again and again.

It's not so bad, things are much worse in developing nations where nothing's being done to solve plastic problems while at the same time there is the need to boost the economies at any cost, towards consumer-based economies like here in North America. I suppose in time they also will grow enough to be able to afford environmental cleanup, but first large-scale shifts to retailing and mass marketing have to be made and that likely means more plastic packaging.

PS... I sorta hate shopping, but am going out to do some this morning and will be buying plastic packaging. And more coffee..

 

[ppine]

I am 70 now and when I was a kid, before the Environmental Movement of the late 1960s, people did all kinds of things that make me shudder. They dumped their trash at the end of a road. They punched a hole in a beverage can so it would sink when they threw it over the side. There was no pollution control on cars. Factory smoke stacks were unregulated. Mining was unregulated. Water quality suffered from contamination by things like sewage, heavy metals, PCBs, and acid mine drainage. The list goes on. The US has the cleanest environment in the history of the world. But now we are sensitized to the problems that are left.

I am a retired forester, and was an environmental consultant for decades. society has evolved in many ways, but the average person today probably has much less awareness than people had in the 1970s and 1980s. We need the old ad campaigns, We need to educate people.

 

[Foxyotter]

Where is today's Lady Bird Johnson?

I try to do my part and pick up trash regularly. Only anecdotal evidence but if there is already trash on the ground people are more likely to trash it more then if it is clean and trash free. Off course some idiot seems to start the cycle at some point.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

We need the old ad campaigns, We need to educate people.

 

[PaddlingPitt]

A little bit of optimism on the litterbug front. While killing a little time before feeding and walking the dog, I was watching some live street cams in Sturgis, SD, of the 80th annual Biker Rally. People seemed to be having a very good tine, strolling along, beneath sunny, warm skies. I hope it works out, but I digress. Coming down the street was a great big, scary kind of biker guy. He nonchalantly strolled over to a corner garbage can, and carefully placed in a tiny piece of garbage. Setting a good example for everyone!

 

[frozentripper]

Found an interesting map that shows world population densities in 3-D... click on the world map for an expanded view, the height of the vertical columns shows how densely people are packed together in urbanizing areas.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/3d-mapping-the-worlds-largest-population-densities/


Africa, India and China seem to be the largest areas where extreme population densities occur, and from a previous report, it's here that much of the plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from. In contrast, much of North America is sparsely populated. The differences will already be known to most but the mapping shows how extreme the range in densities can be. I thought Toronto was crowded but it's nothing compared to India.

There are individual nations mapped out as well, including the United States, and in finer resolution in a link below each map. Didn't know Maine had so much room to move around in.