the plastic scourge

Yesterday I spent a chunk of the afternoon cleaning up my street.  Our hill is too steep for the street cleaners to dare come up or down, so trash collects.  I started at the bottom corner of Castro where a pink plastic bag of trash has been sitting for days getting closer and closer to the storm drain.  As I approached with my rubber gloves, trash bag and robo-tongs (a delightful holdout from Coastal Clean-up day) I noticed that wedged between the bars of the drain, almost pushed through, was a flattened plastic water bottle.  Despite being an ardent foe of plastic water bottles in principle, I have always, in my heart, been somewhat incredulous that they actually get into the storm drains and thus into our waterways and oceans.  But here it was...happening.  I carefully plucked the bottle by its neck out from between the drain grid, careful not to push it through and be lost to pollute our oceans. 

As well as picking up along our beaches, it is equally important to pick up in our neighborhoods and everywhere we are.  Keep plastic out of the drains! The current issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on plastics and their environmental consequences.