Opinion: Best Times to Collect Aquatic Litter

Opinion: Best Times to Collect Aquatic Litter

I have lived on two branches of a local bayou since 1973, and thus have had a lot of experience with aquatic litter. In addition I help with the annual beach clean-up each year.

Trash is much easier to pick up and should be picked up out of the drainage ditches BEFORE it is transported to bigger waters where it may sink or be hidden in marsh areas, or litters public beaches. It is easier to find the litter in a small stream than in a large body of water or hard- to-access marsh areas. We should try to get it before it goes into the marsh.

Litter clean-up should be done in local drainage ditches BEFORE rains, and on beaches and in marshes AFTER rains. All areas, during rains, get their litter moved about, so some areas may be cleaner (drainage ditches) and some areas may end up more littered (beaches, marshes) after a rain.

To stay ahead of the litter we should clean ditches before new rains, before more litter is delivered to marshes and beaches.

Litter Comments/Notes

1. In many cities and along roads they do not pick up the litter before they mow, and the litter is broken, or chopped up. The best solution would be to pick up the litter BEFORE mowing, but if budget/manpower constraints prevent picking up the litter, then chopping it up with mower blades does two things of benefit:

---chops litter into smaller pieces to help speed its break-down.

---chops litter into smaller pieces to lessen water collection and thus decrease mosquito production.

2. The flooding waters of Hurricane Isaac caused much trash to be dispersed by the flood waters. When glass containers travel downstream and hit hard objects (as drainage pipes) a lot of the glass containers break, leaving broken glass along the trail of the floodwaters as they go downstream.

3. It is ironic that floating trash may have a benefit to the world as such trash may give algae a substrate to attach to (a new habitat) so that algae near the open ocean surface can receive better sunlight and produce more oxygen to combat the increase in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Marine scientists should do studies to determine IF oxygen production in floating litter areas is increased as opposed to open ocean areas without floating litter.

Adrian R. Lawler, Ph.D.,  (C) 2012 --

See my article on aquatic litter at:
http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/conservation/Lawler_Controlling_Aquatic_Litter.html