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Picking Up A Peace Of Mind

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By MIKE DeWITT Tribune correspondent

Published: January 13, 2008

It was early, and that made the drive out to one of my favorite hiking destinations a traffic-free pleasure. I, along with my dog, Angel, had visited this out-of-the-way conservation area only two days before. We were looking forward to a more thorough, weekend-style exploration of the trails that wind through these bare winter woods.

We beat the sun to the parking area, a stroke of luck that provided time to down the bitter last drops from my coffee cup while Angel reconnoitered the immediate area for interesting fragrances. Together, we watched the light crest the treetops to cast a golden welcome mat on a crisp Saturday morning hike. But with the light came the ugly.

Strewn before us was a collection of beer cans, bottles and food wrappers that marred the landscape like a cockroach on a wedding cake. The wind had seized upon the weightless plastic and foil, blowing it over an acre of what two days earlier had been a picturesque meadow dappled with the auburn accents of fallen leaves.

The impact of the scene brought up inside me an anger that brought forth a blast of unprintable speech. By their actions, the people who had carelessly cast aside their trash had violated more than the state's anemic littering statute. They had trampled upon the good will and mutual respect that binds together all users of public land, leaving their mess for someone else to clean up.

Fine No Deterrence

I dug in to my pack, pulling out a kitchen-sized trash bag. Trash bags are universally regarded as a hiker's friend. Indispensable for keeping dry things dry, the lowly trash bag has - at one time or another - spared camera, radio, maps, clothes and kindling from watery ruin.

But on this otherwise beautiful morning, the trash bag would serve its manufacturer's intended use. I set down my rucksack and, with Angel in tow, went about the unpleasant business of picking up after the slobs who had trashed my piece of paradise.

With booted foot, I crushed the cans, doing the two-finger pickup as the last of their contents dribbled onto the ground. The bottles, cups and scraps of other rubbish followed the cans, stretching the white plastic walls of the bag until they could contain no more.

According to "No More Trash," a Web site that offers facts about the damage of litter to the environment, an aluminum can takes 200 to 500 years to biodegrade. That seems like no time at all when compared to the Styrofoam party cups I picked up. These would persist as unsightly litter for more than 1 million years - or until a direct meteor strike upon Earth - whichever came first.

Chapter 403 of Florida's Litter Law provides for a $50 fine for anyone illegally disposing of less than 15 pounds of trash on public lands. As I picked my way through the rubbish-strewn meadow, I arrived at the opinion that the penalty for trashing public lands falls far short of justice.

To the tune of another bottle as it fell against those already in the bag, I embarked on a bit of economic reckoning. With worker time, disposal and a vehicle to pay for, the cost to the Southwest Florida Water Management District to clean up after the thoughtless fools that made this mess would come to at least twice the fine the law imposes; and that figure doesn't take into account the cost of law enforcement. Fifty bucks probably wouldn't even cover the fuel expense.

No, I thought, the punishment for fouling our public lands with garbage should be an attention-getter. Truly, there is nothing like dirty fingers dripping with someone else's discarded beer and a great hike spoiled to impart an attractive luster to the idea of imposing Judge Roy Bean-inspired penalties on litterbugs.

A Better Way, Perhaps

Fortunately, there's a better way to combat litter in the wild places you love most. A case study in good environmental stewardship is the Green Armada Foundation, a grass-roots volunteer group recently honored for its work in ridding the waterways of litter.

Their work not only renders great aesthetic benefits to those who enjoy recreational time on the water, it protects from disease and death untold numbers of aquatic creatures who mistake our trash for food.

The Green Armada Foundation welcomes financial support and volunteer involvement from individuals and corporations. Learn more about its needs and work at www.greenarmada.org.

Leave No Trace International is another respected organization that has made great strides in bagging the littering problem. It does so by educating those who use public lands to minimize the impact of their recreational activities on the environment. A typical Leave No Trace course combines common sense and science to teach backcountry travel enthusiasts to "leave no trace" of their visit.

"Pack it in, Pack it out" is one of the basic anti-litter concepts of the Leave No Trace outdoor ethos. Hikers, campers and boaters are taught to minimize the amount of packaging they take with them into the backcountry and to carry out with them whatever they take, leaving nothing behind.

Additionally, LNT devotees are instructed to bring out litter left behind by the less enlightened, enriching the wilderness experience for those to follow. To learn more about Leave No Trace outdoor ethics training and practices, visit www.lnt.org.

'You Can't Fix Stupid'

This absolute truth, proposed by comedian Ron White, is particularly accurate where litterbugs are concerned. With Mr. White's spot-on assessment in mind, it is up to us as conservation-minded individuals to minimize the long-term impact of the stupid on the quality of our outdoor experience.

In addition to the many organized efforts in which we can participate to rid our woods and water of litter, we can each contribute to a cleaner and more beautiful environment by picking up litter as we encounter it on our forays into nature.

After my aforementioned trash encounter in the parking area, I have launched a surge in my personal war on litter. I now bring along a Ziploc bag to securely contain not only the litter I generate, but that dropped either by accident or poor manners by others with whom I share the public's lands.

I have learned that it costs me very little time to pick up that cigarette butt, soda straw or stray shred of candy wrapper that I couldn't find time to stop for in the past. As a result, it is with no small pleasure that I hike mile after litter-free mile knowing that I had a hand in rendering it so. It has returned to me a sense of ownership, a gift that I had too long taken for granted.

Correspondent Mike DeWitt can be reached at mikedewitt@tampabay.rr.com.

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