Posted: Monday, April 2, 2007 12:00 am
On March 24, more than 5,100 volunteers gave up their Saturday routine to pick up trash along Oregon's 362-mile coastline. The volunteers - in near-record numbers - endured a day of horizontal rain to participate in the Great Oregon Spring Beach Cleanup, sponsored by the nonprofit group SOLV.
SOLV's Web site, www.solv.org. noted that the event, in its 22nd year, was "record-breaking," but it was not because of the turnout. Jack McGowan, a former newsman and SOLV's executive director, said it was a dubious milestone: The volunteers picked up 108,000 pounds of trash. That's 3,000 pounds more than previous record amount gathered in the fall of 1996.
Included in the disgusting haul was everything from cigarette butts to a Ford Bronco. Most numerous: thousands and thousands of plastic bottles.
The larger garbage items that tumbled onto our beaches included huge pieces of Styrofoam and a refrigerator. McGowan said large beach debris like that probably is due to spring storm upwellings that bring in trash from nations where sanitary garbage collection is an unaffordable luxury.
But the thousands of water bottles were relatively fresh, meaning they hadn't been in the ocean long enough to be scratched and discolored by the effects of salt water, sand and sun. Those, he said, were likely tossed in Oregon.
McGowan sees the plastic pile-up as evidence that Oregon's Bottle Bill needs updating to include plastic containers, among other things.
But even more is needed: We want to see a revival of pride in our beautiful state, starting with anti-litter education in schools. After all, it was schoolchildren who loved Oregon enough to want to see the pioneer statue atop the Capitol regilded in gold - and who raised the dimes and quarters to make it happen.
Schoolchildren also traveled to the burned Tillamook Forest by the busload to plant Douglas fir seedlings. True, aerial seeding accomplished most of that large-scale reforestation effort on the Tillamook, but those school kids who patted the soil around their newly planted seedlings still recall their work with pride, decades later.
Now older kids could learn (and in turn volunteer to teach their younger peers) why litter is harmful for everything from wildlife to water quality to vehicle safety. Teens also could take the lead in supervised litter clean-ups, perhaps for class credit.
Adults don't have to wait for the next scheduled beach clean-up in the fall to make a difference.
Organizers of the Adopt-a-Highway litter pick-up programs in Linn, Benton, Lincoln and parts of Polk counties have issued a plea for volunteers older than 16 to help keep up with the heaping mounds of trash accumulating along our roadsides. (Call 757-4211 for details).
Oregon's most recent successful slogan was "Things look different here." We aren't all that thrilled, however, with what that increasingly means.