“We’ve
got a good one,” Scully calls out.
She
holds it up, examining it carefully before dropping it into a plastic evidence
bag.
“It’s
recent,” she says, “maybe this morning.”
“Perfect,”
I reply. “No frost last night or even heavy dew. We should get what we need from it.”
Scully
grins, smile creases forming around her deep blue eyes, which match the colour
of her blue latex lab gloves.
I
am lucky to have her as my partner, seconded from the X Files. Fox Mulder, her
weird regular sidekick, is not happy but he can live without her because our
work here is more important than investigating supernatural stuff.
We
are working the stretch of Highway 35 between Minden and Dorset, one of the
most heavily littered pieces of highway in the province. Our mission: catch
litterpigs and make them pay for their stupidity.
What
Scully bagged was a Coke can tossed out the window of a passing car. Advancements
in DNA and fingerprinting could lead us to the person who pitched the litter
and bring them to justice.
I
had walked 696 steps on one side of the highway just south of the Frost Centre.
I found 27 beer or pop cans, 13 plastic water bottles and coffee cups, nine
juice boxes, five cigarette packs and a variety of plastic containers, and
other confection cartons. In all, 63 items, one piece of garbage for every 20
steps.
Tossing
crap onto roadsides is environmental crime and Scully and I are determined to
stop it. We have to because no one else will. The Ontario government has no
anti-littering strategy, and says that roadside litter is a municipal
responsibility.
That
is short-sighted because littering is a slap in Mother Nature’s face, one that damages
plant life, hurts birds, fish and animals and stains the beauty of our
countryside. And, Mother Nature slaps back. Just ask the folks in Houston, Florida,
Puerto Rico and California.
Litterpigs
are not your typical don’t-give-a-damn hardened criminals. They are simply slow
thinkers. Many litter because they wrongly believe that litter breaks down much
quicker than it actually does.
An
aluminum pop can take 80 to 200 years to break down. That can could be recycled
and put to another use in a matter of weeks.
Cigarette
butt filters, the world’s most common litter, take up to 10 years to decompose.
Five
trillion cigarettes are smoked each year worldwide, the filters of which weigh in
total about two billion pounds. Canadians alone toss tons of butts into the
environment.
Even
a Tim Horton’s cardboard coffee cup, a most popular piece of litter in Ontario,
takes weeks to years to break down depending on where it ends up.
Decomposition
times of some other items found along Highway 35: paper bag - one month; wool
glove - one year; plastic bag – 20 to 1,000 years; plastic jug – one million
years; glass – one to two million years;
disposable diaper – 550 years; banana peel – three to four weeks.
Most
of us are tempted to litter at times, especially if we are not being watched.
Statistics Brain, a U.S. research institute, says 75 per cent of Americans
admitted to littering some time in the last five years.
Littering
begets littering. Studies show that people are more likely to litter a highway
or beach that already has been littered.
Scully
and I intend to stop that from happening on Highway 35.
Backs
bent and heads down we are raking the ditches with our eyes when suddenly an
odd-sounding car horn blares. I grab Scully and pull her to me to prevent her
from being hit.
When
I open my eyes I am holding my bed pillow, not Scully. The alarm clock is
blaring on the table beside my bed. Scully, the Coke can and the hopes of
nailing a litterpig all have been a dream.
I get out of bed, shower, dress and get ready for
my morning walk along Highway 35. I’ll scan the ditches to see what the
litterpigs have left since my last walk. That’s when reality turns my nighttime
sweet dream into a daytime nightmare.
Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y
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