............"If we can't stop the mentality that "One plastic bottle will not hurt anything", we will only be taking one step forward and two steps back. We must stop the initial cause of a major part of our plastic problem!!! Littering and improper disposal!!!"
Exactly !
Here in Maine we've had a returnable bottle law for probably the last 40 years. Regarding this, I think we followed Oregon's lead back then. Store owners fought it, but in the end, it went into law.
You do NOT find much trash at all along Maine roadways and no bottles at all....none!....zero! I love that. It has been so long since the bottle law began that I have forgotten what it was like before.
Here in the City of Portland, we recycle much of what we have. Or let's say that we can if we choose to. The city charges about $15 per Blue Bin, a 30" X 30" X 24" plastic carton, which takes years to begin to show signs of breaking. You may choose to fill your blue bin with recyclables or not. After the one-time $15 charge, there is no charge for recycling...until the bin totally falls apart. Then you buy a new one. But they do charge about $10 for a package of 5 blue bags that you must put your trash into (or they will not pick up your trash). Once per week the city comes by your residence and picks up the blue bag(s) for incineration and empties the blue bins into a truck designed to separate the different resource materials.
This summer Portland passed two more litter ordinances. They were meant to clean up the two categories of litter that continued to some extent, even after the bottle law and recycling. These were the plastic bags that grocers bag your food in and styrofoam cups. They get away in the wind and build up as litter.
So styrofoam is banned in Portland now. And so be it! Again, I love it. All coffee cups in Portland are now made of paper again. And if you forget to bring your reusable grocery bag to the store, you get charged a mandatory nickel for each plastic bag. Again, store owners didn't like it...... but too bad.
I love it!
I guess it is safe to say that there are just two places in Portland Maine where litter can be a problem (and not always) - bus stops and where railroad tracks intersect roadways. The former I understand; the latter I do not. Oh, there is one more place. Along the roadway that approaches the public recycling facility, people are constantly losing material off their trucks or trailers and this road has a lot of litter.
I live about 1/2 mile from here and once saw roof shingles flying off a guy's trailer several cars in front of me. This was in the neighborhood where I grew up from a little boy. So...NOPE!....I was not letting this happen. I followed the guy right to the recycling plant and confronted him. He assured me he would go back and pick up the stuff. I said yes, I know you will, because I am going back and watching you. If you do not, I am calling the cops. I was as angry as a yellow jacket. Don't kid me....these people know that their crap is flying off their vehicles as they go to the recycling facility. They do not care just as long as it is not making a mess of their surroundings. He picked it up alright !
Honestly, I must say that most cities I have passed through in my life, look littered compared to Portland Maine. Sorry to sound like I am gloating; that is not my intent....but like it or not, that is just the way it is. It takes people who are determined to stop litter, pass the ordinances that force the hand and following through on things. Portland's City Council has done a good job with respect to preventing litter. No, you do not see cops writing up people for littering. I can only guess that this is because of what Joe and I pointed out; i.e. the place is clean in the first place. So if you start dropping wrappers around and litter starts building up around your store.....it will look like a mess, because everyplace else
does not look messy.
Again:
Litter causes litter.
Just thought of an exception to my statement about most other cities looking littered:
Santa Fe New Mexico, like Portland Maine..... is another clean city
Florida is another story: