Responsibility

Responsibility

There is little that we do in our everyday lives that do not affect our environment in any way. From getting from place to place, or even from our everyday consumption of meals, we contribute to the entropy of the universe, the carbon waste in our biosphere, and the literal waste in our communities. Straying from the theme that I have been holding on to, this narrative will venture into a situation even closer to home, and even more current: our trash. We live on islands, what waste we make is more than likely going to end up staying on this island with much of nowhere else to go.

To put it quite simply, the real problem in this modern world of consumerism and consumption would be litter in excess. Not necessarily all the wasteful things that we do as individuals, but the cumulative actions that lead to such a large “carbon footprint” for an island community. It is extremely rare to walk into a public park or facility and not see some form of trash anywhere. At public beach parks in some places, you can still see evidence of a party from a week before. Small pieces of trash that get stuck on branches and even hidden under leaves, possibly intentionally. Even on the more “secluded” and less trafficked beaches on the islands, one would stumble across all sorts of marine debris. Old nets and buoys from commercial fishing boats miles from shore find their way through the ebb and tide and land on our beaches. It is the cumulative trash that makes our islands almost unpleasant to live in or even visit.

Solving the litter problem will not come from a scientific standpoint of calculations and biotic inhibitors. It would come from the social aspect of cleaning up after ourselves and watching out for others. By implementing marketable programs that promote recycling and island rejuvenation and beautification, communities can lead themselves into a better habit of realizing the state of the nature around them and be more mindful of the waste that they do make. Sorting their own trash and picking up after themselves like the responsible citizens that they are. But then again, there are still the people who do careless acts, undermining the cleanliness of others. By properly enforcing litter laws and actually doing something about illegal dumping grounds, a community can form solidarity against littering and bring an end to unsightly trash in our neighborhoods.

To test for the effectiveness of these “campaigns”, one would simply have to look at the state of the community. To put it in a poetic sense, there would be more smiles; but in a more literal sense, there should be more smiles. On the shorthand, though it can be argued that it is not directly correlated with the lack of trash, there should be higher community morale. More people would come out to public parks and beaches to enjoy themselves knowing that when they get there it will be clean for them, and knowing that they would be expected to clean up after themselves so that others can enjoy is at well. In the long run, not only would the tourism-based island economy see a rise in sales, but the island environment should also see new life. It would be the little adjustments in our lives that lead to large changes in our island environment, and for me, that matters.

BI100L-02 | R. Kim

October 22, 2017