Today we went to the City of Keller event ” Spring Trash Bash 2016 ” . My family was assigned the beautiful Melody Street to clean . We were feeling very good and responsible for bashing the trash ! It was such a fun event and we thank the City of Keller which organized this .I did not expect to find “trash” on such a beautiful street .
But little by little , we filled 4 large trash bags with plastic bags , newspapers , straws , soda cans , plastic water bottles , stray rope , broken Styrofoam coffee cups and a LOT of cigarette butts ! It was astounding how much trash was lurking in the grass by the road . How does so much trash manage to get on the sides of such a beautiful and well managed street? The houses there were big and beautiful . The trash on the roadside was completely unexpected and unwanted . Besides urging people not to just throw out their trash on the street side , I will urge people to recycle whatever they can !
I hope people realize soon that recyclable stuff really needs to be recycled . It does not decompose easily . Here is an estimate of how long a few things take to decompose :
Glass Bottle…………………….. 1 million years
Monofilament Fishing Line… 600 years
Plastic Beverage Bottles…… 450 years
Disposable Diapers………… 450 years
Aluminum Can………………… 80-200 years
Foamed Plastic Buoy……… 80 years
Foamed Plastic Cups……… 50 years
Rubber-Boot Sole…………… 50-80 years
Tin Cans……………………. 50 years
Leather…………………………… 50 years
Nylon Fabric…………………… 30-40 years
Plastic Film Container…….. 20-30 years
Plastic Bag…………………….. 10-20 years
Cigarette Butt…………………. 1-5 years
Wool Sock………………………. 1-5 years
Plywood…………………….. 1-3 years
Waxed Milk Carton………… 3 months
Apple Core…………………. 2 months
Newspaper………………….. 6 weeks
Orange or Banana Peel…… 2-5 weeks
Paper Towel……………….. 2-4 weeks
Reference : http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/coastal/trash/documents/marine_debris.pdf
So if there is a can lying on the roadside , it just wont go away for another 80 to 200 years . We need to put it in a recycling factory where it can be reused .
Also, look at the decomposing time for a cigarette butt ! We found about 50 of them on that one street .
I would love for the City to organize this event again and soon because this was really an eye opener for me and was fun for the kids ! They felt really responsible and worked hard to clean up the street .
