Litter Bugged
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Mon 26 Apr 2010 19:14
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April 26 0836 Local 1806 UTC
09:42.20S 139:17.14W
We are presently underway from Hiva Oa to Nuku Hiva
in the Marquesas. Angus has now left the boat and is probably still struggling
through lava and ash to get home to Shetland. We had actually managed to get to
the Marquesas in good time for his return trip despite the delays at the Panama
canal. We have now also booked a return trip to Scotland and we should be home
from the 2nd June to the 15th of June. thsi gives us time to catch up with
business and family and domestic matters and Trish in particular is looking
forward to the trip.
I hope none of you ever drop any litter of any type
at any time. i detest litter and the attitude, basic lack of simple
intelligence and culture of those who would wantonly trash their own or
other peoples enviroment. Now I am no green crusader as I think personally
that some of these people and organisations are not balanced in their view
with regard to how we can sustainably develop our economy and wellbeing in
balance with nature.
So, have you got it? I cant stand littering and
those who trash our world but I am not a narrow minded green
radical. Everything in moderation.
I have in fact been known on occasion to spend the
best part of a day cleaning up the beach or the shore mostly of plastic and that
mostly plastic bottles, in an anchorage where we have been and take it back to
where there is a litter collection service.
So that said, we sail off from Europe with a boat
full of all kinds of kit and lots of food. In lots of packaging. What should we
do with the packaging?
Take it to our beautiful tropical landfall and hand
it over (the problem) to the first person we see who offers to take it off us
for a dollar? Walk it to the skip ourselves? Dump it by the lamp post ashore
with all the other sailors rubbish, in absence of a skip? Clandestinely pop it into a wheely bin if there is one
belonging to a local business. Yes - all of the above. This is the norm for
most boats, most of whom consider themselves to be environmentally friendly and
some are even close to "eco - warriors".
So why do we think it is OK/ environmentally
friendly to cart our junk from big industrial Europe across oceans and deposit
on a small tropical island - even in a wheely bin or a skip. Where do we think
it is going to go? Off our concience is the only place it is going generally. It
will generally end up at worst behind a bush somewhere later to be wind strewn
across the island or the sea and at best in a land fill site or
burnt.
Now consider this: if I took a bottle - made
from sand I think, and break it over board or otherwise launch it so it will
sink, when we are say 500 or 1000 miles from land and in 4000 feet of water - is
this not better for the environment than carting it off my consience and my boat
and place it on a small tropical island. I personally think it is so this is
what I do. Now take a steel tin (lets say of beans) and take the label
of it and bin it aboard and send this to the
bottom of the ocean in several 1000 feet of water and many hundreds or a
thousand miles from land. This one is marginal for me but on balance I do
it but am happy to hear a good reason why it is better to take it to a small
tropical island. Steel, can be recycled of course but is relatively low
value and needs very large quantities to make it happen. Therefor I know it will
not happen in the places we go to.
Aluminium on the other hand is valuable and I have
seen people collecting tins in some very remote places for onward shipment for
re-cycling so I therefor keep these. Plastic bottles are and can be recyled and
can not be sunk, and in any event and they are the scum of the litter bunch
for me.
Our plastic we keep in a separate bag in the hope
that it can be recycled, though unlikely.
All organic waste goes over the side, but
some things of course not near the shore.
This is an interesting debate but only really one
where we are discussing various ways of treating the symptoms rather than
dealing with the problem.
For my part I am pretty sure that good old Scottish
frugality is a major part of the answer. Consume less and waste less. Waste
there is no excuse for and we could all reduce our waste of resource
consumption. Energy food and material things. we could all reduce by 10% without
material deterioration of our lifestyle or living standards. In the case of food
it would seriously improve our health and consequently living
standards/lifestyle.
This in turn would have an economic impact but we
will have to turn to that another day.
So you can see I do think about these things and I
do have views which I have thought through, and which I accept may not be
correct, however I have at least thought them through. You have heard that I
cant stand litter and in particular plastic bottles. So how do you think I felt
when going to bring our litter ashore in Fatu Hiva after our Pacific crossing
and discovered that the bag full of plastic bottles had dissappeard from our
dingy on its davits. This was probably when we were rounding the north end
of Fatu Hiva in very blustery conditions and were getting hit by winds
accelerating round the point and piling down off the mountainous island and were
very heeled over.
I was absolutely gutted - I could not believe my
carelessness. This was worse than any yobs' thousand sweety papers on the
street. Grrrrrrr!
The Marquesas, Fatu Hiva and Hiva Oa the land of
plenty. Fatu Hiva could have been the original garden of Eden. The place was
dripping with fruit. It was everywhere - too much for the islanders to eat.
The ground was strewn with all sorts of it - Mangoes, breadfruit, papaya,
lemons, oranges, limes, noni, pampellmousse, coconuts. Just
bizarre.
Every day at 4pm all the youth gathered down at the
shore to play volleyball and this seemed to be organised in a communal way and
was always in a spitit of fun and laughter.
The people are all friendly and seem generally
gentle and peacable. There is a lot of sitting around, but all the homes and
surrounds are immaculately kept. The shiny new 4X4's everywhere must have a tale
of French subsidy to be told somewhere becouse there is no obvious signs of
economic output and people seem to live at a very slow pace.
There certainly would be no need to earn cash to feed your family. I will
think more on this subject.
After the Marquesas we will sail the 4 or 500 miles
to the Tuamotos this week sometime. There we are out at the reefs. At the
edge. The middle of nowhere and I have been looking forward to this part
more than anywhere else. We will see. Chi
sinn!
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