Boy, am I ever glad that I’m not The Naked Chef! If I
was, I’m sure that what happened the other day, could have and would have been
much worse. It started out so
ordinarily, just an ordinary kind of day, oh about four or five days ago …
*******************
It’s rather nice out today, sun shining brightly, the odd
fluffy white cloud tumbling slowly across the vivid blue sky and best of all,
no humidity. It seems like there’s been
a humidex warning of about a thousand every day for weeks. I decide to take advantage of this beauteous
day and get some errands done, which I have been putting off because I just don’t
feel like moving when it’s so humid.
Going
for a walk over by the beach makes me feel virtuous and I think, hopefully, it
will offset the last ten days or so of slothfulness. I wander down the beach, picking up trash as
I go. I come prepared and keep one of
those dollar store grabber thingies and rubber gloves in the trunk of my car, along
with an assortment of garbage bags.
You know, it’s pretty disgusting what people leave behind, after
enjoying a summer day at the water’s side.
I’ve hauled broken down beach chairs and busted up, moldy beach
umbrellas to the trash because whoever owned them couldn’t be bothered.
These day trippers would have had to go right by the trash
cans to get to their cars but yet, they just can’t be bothered to take their
garbage with them. “Leave it for the
people who get paid to clean up after us”, has been heard. What?? You have a maid? Butler?
Manservant? Must be nice. I only have me and believe me, I DO NOT get
paid for cleaning up the beach. And no,
nobody asked me to do it. I do it out of
outrage at the pigs (apologies for the insult to pigs) and concern for the kids
and dogs and shore birds and assorted wildlife.
 |
| Rusty Beer Cap |
I think of all the young’uns
having a ball, running through the sand.
They’re not looking where they’re going, or where their feet are
landing. Imagine a bottle cap (usually
from beer, which shouldn’t be on the beach anyway) and which are usually rusty
and mostly seem to land bottom side up. Do
you know what that fluted edge can do to a young foot when they step on it
hard enough? It’s like a hot knife
through those tender feet. Same for
dogs, who also shouldn’t be on the beach but people ignore that rule also.
And you just gotta
love those cigarette butts too, with all the nasty, toxic chemical-laden
filters. The filters are made out of a
kind of plastic. It’s very slow to
degrade in the environment[i]
and typically a cigarette butt will take anywhere from eighteen months to ten years
to decompose, depending on conditions.
And believe me, I see this every time I beach-comb. A lot of what I pick up are these almost
perfectly intact one inch poison pellets, as I’ve come to think of them.
 |
| Used Cigarette Filter |
I can just imagine all that nicotine and tar and other crap[ii],
which is sucked into the filter by supposedly sentient human beings. Although, according to what I’ve read, filters
are pretty much useless. They are
effective enough to trap some of the tar, nicotine and other chemicals but
create more of a problem than they’re worth. People douse their butts in the
sand, which may be swept into the water and then back to the sand, all the
while leaching out whatever they’ve absorbed.
They are considered a biohazard[iii]
and place some of our marine life in jeopardy. Almost TWO BILLION pounds (907,184,740
kilos) of butts wind up as toxic trash every year. Little kids and sometimes
dogs and birds think they make a tasty treat.
Get me off of my soapbox!
Suffice to say that I hope I’ve seen it all, right down to the used prophylactic
laying limply in the damp sand. YUCK! I use a nearby stick to pick that up, not
wanting to contaminate my grabber any more than it needs to be.
Around 4:30, my tummy starts making the faintest of rumbling
noises, which is when I realize it’s getting on for dinner time. And that’s when I start thinking about making
dinner, or …? Eat out, which is
something that I rarely do. Not only is
there limited choice close to home, but it can also get really pricey if you do
it too often.
Sighing and remembering my monthly budget’s slightly
negative balance and it being only the 20th of the month, I decide to make my
supper. Even bigger sigh. Ten more days
until the bank account is topped up and I have to cook dinner and clean up
after it. Double whammy!
Turning around, I ramble over the dunes, working my way
closer to the parking lot and my car. It’ll be good to get home, ditch the bag of
gross-me-out garbage and take a shower.
To Be Continued …
[i] Christian
Science Monitor,
Earth Talk – Little cigarette butts make big litter
impact
November 18, 2009
By The Editors of E Magazine
[ii] Ambio.
2017 Apr; 46(3): 361–370.
Published online 2016 Nov 14. doi: 10.1007/s13280-016-0851-0
PMCID: PMC5347528
PMID: 27844421
Environmental impacts of tobacco product waste:
International and Australian policy responses
Lucinda A. Wallbank,1 Ross MacKenzie,2 and Paul J.
Beggs1
Copyright © Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 2016
[iii] M
Register, Kathleen. (2000). Cigarette Butts as Litter—Toxic as Well as Ugly.
Bull Am Litt Soc. 25.
