Pollution is a lot more than cow patties in the creek or the cigarette butts and gum wrappers we see lying around (though those are polluting). How about the diffusion into the air of harmful gases from a local mill or refinery, the huge gobs of oil encountered by Thor Heyerdahl as he crossed the ocean on a raft or the radioactive poisoning of thousands of acres of soil at Rocky Flats and Chernobyl? Those affect parts of our environment crucial to our survival.
Eliminating or at least limiting such major problems may seem a bit out of the reach of individuals, but we can chip away at them by the way we live and walk on the earth. We in this country particularly need to look at the way we live - our consumption patterns - and realize that there is waste in everything we do. Some part of whatever we buy is a product of processes which are polluting, some terribly so; some part of whatever we buy ends up as waste and some part of that waste pollutes. How much of that is necessary?
Do we really need to carry our bundles home in bags made of petroleum, the extraction, refining and distribution of which lays waste to much of the earth's surface and could eventually lead to the death of the seas? Is it absolutly necessary to drive two blocks to the store and back five times a week in a machine that puts poisonous vapors into the air? Can't we make the effort to recycle things instead of throwing them in the trash, to fill up the landfills of the nation?
How about if large numbers of us, all of us even, left the superfluous packaging at the store where we bought an item? Would that nudge the merchandiser into suggesting a little less packaging to the distributor? Or, how about if we got a law passed outlawing excess packaging, or at least taxing it? Would that cut down on the problem?
Suppose all of us installed energy-saving light bulbs in place of the energy-squandering incandescents we now use? That would cut down on the demand for electricity and lead to less pollution from the coal-fired, gas-fired and nuclear-fired generating facilities that provide that electricity.
Or, to get back to littering, what if everybody realized that it's worth the little bit of effort and inconvenience required to hang on to the gum wrappers and cigarette butts if the reward is cleaner surroundings.
It is not unrealistic to expect that we can reduce the amount of trash and the amount of poison in our water, our air, our soil, our neighborhoods, our very lives if we just stop and think about what we're doing and what the consequences are.
Much of our consumption - with consequent waste and pollution - springs from our fondness for convenience. Convenience is indeed a strong motive, but a lot of the polluting we do only seems convenient because we're not the ones paying the ultimate cost. If we put those costs - industrial or local cleanup, neutralization or quarantine of poisonous or noxious substances, etc. - into the equation, things begin to look less convenient as it becomes harder to breathe, harder to get clean water, as the trash piles up around us and as the bills for dealing with those problems come home to roost at the taxpayer's door.
If we are to prevent pollution, we need to think in terms of a balance between our love of convenience and the costs incurred thereby and decide whether the convenience we "need" is really necessary.
For further information about pollution and what you can do to help prevent it, call the MEC at 707-468-1660.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1996
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited