Sunday, April 23, 2023

My Earth Week Afloat

 

This Earth Week found my boat and me making the transition from the larger-scale waters of New York's Hudson River to the considerably smaller-scale of my local waters such as the Concord River (photo above) and the Assabet River...


Paddled the Concord between Bedford, MA and the old Middlesex Turnpike crossing on Thursday, and the Assabet from Cox Street in Hudson between the old Mass Central RR trestle...

...and the Gleasondale Dam downriver in Stow, MA on the officially designated Earth Day.

The most scenic section was where the Assabet sweeps around Orchard Hill...


The section between the railroad trestle and Orchard Hill produced a fair bit of trash...

...whereas the Concord had considerably less...
Note the Sharkool lithium-powered remote control speedboat found dead-in-the-water in the river...


Another curiosity was coming across another ball-shaped miniature alcohol plastic bottle, "Chiller".  Unlike the majority of miniature plastic bottles typically containing 50 mls and presently littering our roadsides, parks, and waterways, these plastic orbs with aluminum tops contain 187 mls.  With many communities planning to implement bans on miniatures holding less than 100 mls. Could these ball-shaped containers have been specifically designed to skirt such bans?
Here's a look at the two I've recovered from different waterways this spring...

The manufacturer recommends that consumers ship the empty containers to a specific recycler.  Will most folks take the time to do that?...or instead just toss them in the trash or wherever they feel is convenient?  Communities considering banning miniatures containing less-than 100 mls may want to reconsider.  Perhaps a better approach would be having a deposit on all containers, regardless of volume.

I would also respectfully request that our elected state representatives seriously consider increasing the state's container deposit from a nickel to a dime per container.  The present nickel just doesn't have anywhere near the value it did back in 1982 when the Massachusetts Bottle Bill was created.  The State of Maine, noted for a common-sense approach, places a 15-cent deposit on miniatures including these ball-shaped ones.  The states of Iowa and Vermont place a nickel deposit on them.  In Massachusetts, as well as most other states, they have no deposit and therefore no monetary incentive for anyone to care how they're disposed of.

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