Yes­ter­day, on my way home from work the dri­ver of the car in front of me rolled down her win­dow and threw a candy wrap­per onto the street. I just do not under­stand that men­tal­ity. I mean, who did she think was going to pick up that wrap­per? I won­der, while prepar­ing din­ner does she toss the empty pasta box out the kitchen win­dow? Or, while get­ting the mail does she pitch her unwanted junk mail onto her lawn? I would assume that like most folks she keeps her prop­erty neat and clean, but thinks noth­ing of lit­ter­ing our pub­lic spaces. Just who are those peo­ple who toss whole bags of fast food rem­nants, soda cans, 12-packs of empty beer cans, ash­trays, or any assort­ment of unwanted trash onto our roads, lawns and stream banks? Truth is they are neigh­bors, friends, and fel­low county res­i­dents. Few will admit to this prac­tice, but the sheer vol­ume of mate­r­ial seen along the road­way is proof enough that too many peo­ple find this an accept­able method of dis­posal. This is not a new phe­nom­e­non. His­tory is repeat­ing itself. Who can for­get the nos­tal­gic 1960’s image of the Native Amer­i­can shed­ding a tear as lit­ter is thrown along the high­way? That mas­ter­ful cam­paign led to a sig­nif­i­cant drop in lit­ter­ing for a period of time. Unfor­tu­nately, it seems the behav­ior change that mes­sage prompted has slowly been lost over the last 50 years.

For the record, trash deposited in pub­lic spaces does not mirac­u­lously dis­ap­pear. There are no stealthy gnomes who run around after hours and col­lect all this garbage. Nope, it is a dif­fer­ent group of friends, neigh­bors and county res­i­dents who vol­un­teer their time pick­ing up the trash left by oth­ers. In addi­tion, local gov­ern­ment and pri­vate busi­nesses spend mil­lions of dol­lars each year to pick up trash. Despite the best efforts of these groups, trash con­tin­ues to clog gut­ters and stor­mdrains, and when assisted by rain ends up in our streams, rivers, and har­bors. Take a walk down any stream val­ley and see the trash that has accu­mu­lated. Bet­ter yet, check out Baltimore’s Inner Har­bor or Ana­cos­tia in SE Wash­ing­ton after a storm. Six tons of trash are removed from Inner Har­bor every two weeks. A por­tion of that har­bor trash makes its way from Howard County. Sur­vey after sur­vey con­cludes that the local pop­u­la­tion wants to improve the Bay ecosys­tem, yet as a soci­ety we con­tinue to have trash lit­ter­ing our streams and the Bay. Some­thing is wrong with this picture.

The mag­ni­tude of the trash prob­lem has prompted the Mary­land Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment to reg­u­late trash as a Bay pol­lu­tant. Howard County may soon be required to estab­lish a trash mit­i­ga­tion pro­gram as part of our Munic­i­pal Stormwa­ter Per­mit (MS4). With all the Bay related work that will be nec­es­sary to man­age uncon­trolled runoff, limit nutri­ents, and restore stream habi­tat it seems a shame to have to spend time and money address­ing lit­ter. This is a sim­ple prob­lem to solve if every­one acts respon­si­bly and dis­poses of their trash prop­erly. Sev­eral neigh­bor­ing juris­dic­tions have recently insti­tuted a bag fee in an attempt to limit the amount of trash find­ing its way to our streets and streams. They report that in 2009, vol­un­teers picked up 41,000 plas­tic bags dur­ing a regional water­shed cleanup! These com­mu­ni­ties are quick to point out that the bag fee was not imple­mented as a rev­enue source but instead to estab­lish a behav­ior change. The fee must be work­ing because the num­ber of bags pur­chased dropped by 50% in the first few months.

The irre­spon­si­ble behav­ior of some folks who toss trash in pub­lic areas has a neg­a­tive impact on our local ecol­ogy. Thanks to cit­i­zen groups like the Pat­ap­sco Val­ley Her­itage Green­ways, and Alliance for the Bay; and gov­ern­ment spon­sored pro­grams like Adopt a Road, and 20 Minute Cleanup; our com­mu­nity tries to stay ahead of the mount­ing road­side lit­ter prob­lem that quickly becomes a water­way pol­lu­tant problem.

Unfor­tu­nately, the good deeds of oth­ers can­not keep up with the vol­ume of trash in pub­lic areas and we may soon be required to insti­tute stronger and more costly pro­grams to reduce the trash in our water­ways. We have a con­sid­er­able amount of work to do in the Bay water­shed to improve water qual­ity and it seems a shame to spend time and money on deal­ing with trash. To quote another aging cam­paign, “Give a hoot, don’t pol­lute.” This is an easy one. Let’s make it happen.

Jim Cald­well
Stormwa­ter Manager