Joining a group of locals, I kayaked up a Connecticut river from the coast on a Saturday last summer to clean up rubbish, helped along by the rising tide. In the shallows, white egrets and blue herons hunted. Ospreys flew overhead, carrying their catch of the day. The afternoon sun was reflected into a million diamonds as the wind brushed the water, creating fields of ripples. The marshes appeared untamed and immaculate from our distance.
As we made our way through the marsh, we noticed more and more little plastic fragments. Not only fishing line, straws, lighters, combs and the like, but inexplicable, seemingly endless little fragments that ranged in size from as big as my hand to as little as sand grains. You might pick rubbish in the hinterlands and never leave. Plastic garbage overflows the land and sea, even in one of the less polluted areas of the East Coast, outside of a metropolis with structured waste management and a recycling system. Read more-