Contacted

I was very excited this morning because after waiting  for a while, I finally received an email back from one of the organizations I emailed. Unfortunately for me, they just sent me a link directing me to an area of their website.

Impacts of Litter

Litter has many negative social, environmental, and economical impacts; making in very detrimental and unsustainable.

The myriad of detrimental impacts of litter are observable in the U.S., Mexico, and every other country. Something that often happens in Mexico is that, when it rains, trash washes towards the storm drains, clogging them and creating a flood that can cause water damage to houses, which will cost the homeowner money to repair. Trash flooding the streets is not a pretty sight, which is also why the tourism business in some areas of Mexico is suffering; people don't want to go on vacation where there's trash everywhere, and it's costing businesses in Mexico to lose money and reflects poorly on the area.

Trash is also a breeding ground for mosquitoes, so when it accumulates, the mosquito population flourishes and they can bring diseases like dengue fever to the residents of the city. This is negative socially because it gives the area a bad name and is negative economically because it costs the residents money to get treatment.

Larval Habitats

Environmentally, animals both in and outside the area can choke on the litter produced there. The trash can get washed out to nearby water sources where marine animals can attempt to eat the trash and choke. Annually the RSPCA receives around 7,000 calls related to animals being hurt by litter. For example, a dog cut an artery on a piece of scrap metal, a badger had a plastic can holder embedded in its neck, a cat cut its paw on a piece of broken glass, and another dog got its tongue caught in a discarded can.

The problem isn't just on the surface; trash can also emit toxic chemicals into the earth. Cigarette butts take twelve years to break down, and while the elements, such as cadmium, arsenic, and lead break down, they're released into the soil and waterways.

Picking up the litter also cost the government a lot of money, some of it coming from taxes, so you're basically paying for the government to pick up trash you dropped. It's extremely expensive as well; Falkirk, Scotland uses around 5 million dollars to clean up litter. If people simply disposed of their trash appropriately. their money wouldn't be wasted on something that didn't have to be done; it could go towards something more useful.

Cleaning Litter: Limiting Factors

There are certain factors that effect how much trash in the Audubon can be collected, this is my attempt to go step by step to try and maximize their efforts.

The Audubon is trying to maximize the amount of animals they save . When maximizing the animals we save, we have to consider the things the Audubon can control about saving these animals. They can control how many people they let volunteer pick up litter and the amount of people they let work on creating Burrowing Owl nests. It cost approximately $25 per burrow and 33 cents per garbage bag. We can represent the animals saved by: A<B+L (A=animals saved, B= Burrows, L=Bags of Litter Collected).

The amount of volunteers assigned to collect litter and the amount assigned to create burrows changes the amount of animals potentially saved, because we're assuming (this may not be accurate because I'm just estimating here) that one burrow (B) saves 4 owls (two adults and two offspring), and that one bag of litter (L) saves 1 animal. If we have more people collecting litter, we have more people creating owl burrows, and getting rid of one of these programs is not optimal. 

The limits the Audubon has are: the amount of volunteers that show up (let's assume it's 20 each time for our purposes), that there's two tasks needing to be completed, and that they have to do this once a month for three hours (36 hours a year). My decision variables affect the limiting factors because we could have unlimited volunteers, but we only have 36 hours a year devoted to picking up litter and creating owl burrows. Within two hours, three bags of litter can be collected per volunteer, whilst three owl owl burrows can be created. Each burrow takes approximately 3 volunteers, while one bag of litter takes 1. We're going to assume that the budget is $100.

As a set of inequalities (L=Bags of litter collected, B=Burrows created, A=Animals saved, V=Volunteers, H= Hours, M=Money)

100(M)> 25B+ .33L    
20(V)> 3B+L
36(H)> B+L

Currently, they can allocate more people to different areas of work to save more animals, but they can't get rid of one of the programs. 

My corner points were: 0,0; 4,0; 3.89, 8.33; 0,20

Littering in the U.S. vs. Mexico

U.S.
When researching litter, I've discovered some differences and similarities between the U.S. and Mexico concerning how big of an issue it is, how it's dealt with, and how it affects the country.

First of all, in the U.S., littering is viewed in a different light. People are often educated on the negative effects of littering and are fined if they litter (up to $1.500 in Chicago) which discourages people from doing so. In Mexico, people take littering a little more lightly and laws on littering are rare and rarely enforced.. In a 2012 interview, Mexico City residents were asked if they left recyclable waste in the streets, 52% said yes, and in a 2013 survey 42% of Americans admitted they littered in the past month.

Besides penalties, organizations themselves have tried to solve some of the problems connected to littering. The Audubon, where I volunteered, organize volunteer days once a month where people can go and clean up the Salt River. This consists of a 2-3 hour period where people pick up trash in the Audubon in garbage bags and leave it for the crew to pick up.

Other organizations, like Marine Litter Solutions contribute to raising awareness, researching for facts, promoting policies, spreading knowledge, and enhancing recovery of waste.

Audubon Volunteering

Littering is also dealt with in the U.S. by educating the public on the dangers through policies and the general spread of knowledge. One program, Marine Litter Solutions, is an international program focused on raising awareness of litter in our water, researching facts, promoting policies, spreading knowledge, and enhancing the recovery of litter.

They raise awareness through creating partnerships with the government and communities, trying to spread knowledge and awareness through education (e.g. having educational events on recycling, visiting classrooms, starting anti-litter campaigns). They also do research in order to assess the amount of litter in the water and creating quantifiable targets to reduce marine debris: :"the Global plastics industry works with the scientific community and researchers to better understand and evaluate the scope, origins, and impact of and solutions to marine litter." Also, through connecting with the government, they are able to help promote new waste management policies.

Finally, they try to actually try to get out there and collect the litter using new and innovative solutions. For example, Marine Litter Solutions is currently working on outfitting fishing boats with trawls that will be able to collect 2-8 tonnes of waste, they hope to complete this by 2020. They also organize cleanups all over the world to clean up waste int the water.

A cleanup 

Mexico
The organization in Mexico I was initially interested in was "Mexico Limpio y Querido". They try to raise environmental awareness on litter and other similar problems, trying to reduce litter in Puedo Vallarta and Riveria Nayarit. They organize meetings where people can come and leave more educated about environmental issues.

In Mexico, there is also an annual nationwide cleanup day called "Limpiemos Nuestro Mexico" The event included television spots raising the awareness of littering and the improper refuse handling in Mexico. Last year, 7 million volunteers collected 36,500 metric tons of garbage.

Volunteers for Limpiemos Nuestro Mexico

Edit: I was just contacted by INECC or "Instituto Nacional de Ecología y Cambio Climático". I received a very thorough email answering all of my questions.

They said they were in a close alliance with SEMARNAT, another organization I contacted, and that together they have been working to train government officials in the area of waste management.  Along with other organizations, they have spread nationwide courses on the importance of the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) and was also designed to support development in waste management projects that are desperately needed. 

They also wrote that: "INECC also participated in the design of Prevention Policy and Integrated Waste Management, as well as the preparation of the National Program for Prevention and Integrated Waste Management (2008-2012). Furthermore, the development INECC Basic Diagnosis 2012 where the situation that solid waste in Mexico (attached publication) is presented. We have participated in assessments of 13 sites of waste disposal, as well as in the development of techniques {on reviews of different technologies for the treatment of waste. Furthermore, in collaboration with the German Development Agency (GIZ) developed a methodology for collecting data in the field of waste and specific studies that quantify environmental performance of specific flows, such as plastic bags, the underside PET, to name a few."

INECC feels it is important to teach this issued so people can grow passionate about them and learn sustainability.

  

Organizations in Mexico

My project was on the issue of litter and ho it's affecting land resources, and for Spanish class I had to email an organization in a Spanish speaking country asking about how litter affected them and whatnot. I emailed more than nine organizations and have not received a reply back yet, so my project is mainly based of research. This is what I sent the organizations:

Hola, (lo siento por los malas dominio del español, no es mi primera lengua) Soy Amanda Trent y yo estoy haciendo un proyecto sobre la protección de los recursos de tierra y agua. Aquí en Arizona, uno de los problemas que tenemos que afecte negativamente a los recursos es tirar basura. Tuve un par de preguntas acerca de cómo se considera basura y se ocupó de su organización: 

¿Cuáles son los impactos negativos que la basura tiene en México? 

¿Cómo afecta lo que hace su organización? 

¿Cómo afecta a la tierra y los recursos hídricos en México? 

¿Cuáles son los impactos sociales, ambientales y económicos de la basura en su país? 

¿Cómo se puede tratar de resolver el problema de la basura? 

¿Cuáles son los factores limitantes a la solución del problema? 

Gracias por su tiempo y le agradecería que tuviera a bien responder pronto. 

                                                 -Amanda Trent

Audubon

Recently, I've been researching issues pertaining to land, air, and water resources. This Saturday I had the opportunity to volunteer with a group of other students from Bioscience at the Rio Salado Audubon in Phoenix. Their goal is, "To further protection of birds and other wildlife and their habitats through science, education, advocacy, and conservation". 
 We were told to arrive at 8am at the building on Central Ave so we could meet up with a larger group of volunteers and create owl habitats, but once we got to the building were told we are at the wrong building, and we needed to walk over to the one on 7th avenue. We walked across the bridge connecting the buildings and found out that, once again, we were in the wrong place.

view from the bridge

We went back to the original building and a different employee told us she needed to check the system to confirm where the group was, so we hung around the lobby area for a few minutes.

the lobby

She told us to go down into the little valley the path of the Audubon trail was in and walk west for about fifteen minutes until we saw the large group. We walked for a while, and then we saw the group, but they were above the little valley far away.

The trail

A couple of members of the group acted hastily and tried to cross the muddy river.

The rest of us decided to look for another path around and found the trail going up the side and we all eventually met up with the large group. By then it was 9, and we followed the leader to a section off the side of the little valley. We had a choice to either collect trash or to build owl habitats. 

Tools for the owl habitats

Our small group from school decided we'd rather pick up littler because it pertained more to conserving resources, so we got on our gloves and garbage bags and set out to collect trash. What struck me was just how much trash people had carelessly tossed into the conservatory. There was everything from ordinary snack wrappers and Gatorade bottles to tires, Styrofoam, couch cushions, and carpet.

I found an edge of trees blocking where the river once ran and I saw some cups sticking out as well as that there was a way through. I called a friend over and we pushed our ways through the trees.

 Initially it just looked like a nice orange area of leaves and mud beneath some trees, but as we walked further on, we discovered a mess of cups. By the looks of it, the river that once ran through had washed them up into heap.

I managed to pick up some of the cups and take a photo with my group, but the volunteer shift ended and I didn't get to pick up everything. By the end, I had almost 3 full garbage bags of trash, and the large number of volunteers did the same. We left the bags in a place for the Audubon crew to pick up, got some water and snacks from the employees, and then the small volunteer group from school and I walked the 1.6 miles back, though this time we didn't get lost. 

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience. Though my group got lost and was tired by then end of it, I got an experience out of it. I saw just how bad litter could be, and in a conservatory nonetheless. It also inspired me to do more research on the subject and how it's impacting the environment (More about the detrimental nature of littering in my next post).