River Cleaning

Every year a clean up day is sponsored by Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, an organization devoted to keeping our local waterways shining.  They dispensed gloves and plastic bags to assist in gathering the incredible amount of garbage dumped into and around the rivers and creeks by humans.  For all the green publicity put out there, I still think people are overwhelmed by the disposable aspect provided by the business end of economy.  If you don't throw it out, you won't buy another.  Things are made to be tossed.

Yes, there were a lot of the plastic straws and paper cups from fast food, but that was the least of the debris.  What compromised the largest bulk of the garbage I picked up were disposable lighters, twist off tops, and myriad bits of hard, brightly colored plastic inexorably, minutely, universally mixed throughout the sand and wood chips.  Neon purple, pink, green and orange shards are a part of the beach and shore, forever.  To pick up each one was similar to pulling apart yards become miles of coleslaw from the sand and rocks along the walkway.  I wondered if this was the new environment, one spattered with bits of broken toys and containers, and if what I was doing mattered.

Stronger folks hauled tires and found a discarded table, hubcaps, shoes, beer cans, and indescribable things battered by waves and elements into mystery.  I stayed within a certain distance of the fence opening, and was still able to fill my bag with plastic discards, sharp edged and shapeless.  Where is this coming from?  You see the product in the store, and think that the manufacturer has something to do with its beginning and end, and that they wouldn't make more if it were really hurting the way we live.  False.  Business will make as much as it can sell, leaving disposal to chance.

Here is an example:  I picked up a crayon from the floor of a classroom.  This crayon, however, is in a plastic case and will spiral up similar to a lipstick as a gimmick.  For what purpose?  The stick of crayon within the tube is very thin, and would not hold up to the pressure of fingers; this means that less product is presented in a hardier case.  But this is designed for children, who love to fiddle with stuff as it gives them the illusion of control, so within hours, the plastic tube no longer has any crayon left.  The crayon has been used up, snapped, shared, gone.  What is left is a the container, which is not refillable and so is tossed.  Eight to a pack.

This is a big name company who makes millions of these things--think of the load the earth holds with these and all the other hard plastic doodads.  Picture all the stuff in the mall, now throw it out, fill the mall up again.  Empty out the big box stores, pile the items in a parking lot, refill the store.  Look in a catalog of party supplies, all made to be discarded.  A lot of it can't be recycled, much of it the city doesn't accept.  Too much is thrown away in lots, at curbs, in open fields, waterways, wherever it becomes out of sight.

The area does looks better for the effort, even though the day was dismal cold and worked its way up into hail and rain.  When my hand was reaching for another discarded container, a brown blur scurried around from under a rock to another crevice: a bunny!  Years ago when walking along the top of the rocks, a tiny cup of a baby rabbit was so intent on the yellow rock clover in front of him, that he didn't startle when my foot almost stepped atop his self.  Just a wee bit of brown with the liquid eyes of a wild thing, he let me watch as he took supper.  Could this be the same one, all grown?  More likely a relative.

When I was young and down at the river, the dangerous discard was the silk line left by fishermen, likely to get stuck in a maw somewhere.  This was before plastic filament, I would see black line tangled with hooks, waiting to ensnare finger or beak.  Glass bottles were a terror, for idiots would toss them into the waves, and they would break near shore and cut the feet of waders.  Tin cans, the ubiquitous tire, and machine parts would get dumped into the lake.  A train is at the bottom of a local Canadian quarry, originally used to haul stone, left in the pit after its use ended.

There is much left to do today, before ending with a sigh.  The bunny down at the shoreline has new greenery to nibble, for fresh buds and small mouthfuls are beginning.  Not the lush exuberance of green yet, but enough to know that a cottontail will dine well before retiring to a burrow lined with dried grasses and the mother's fur.  Bed down, little rabbit, and dream of lovely warm days and burgeoning clovers, enough to fill your rabbit desires.  Sleep well, good river, good night.