[RP TownTalk] Street sweeping

[Dwight Holmes]

Bruce, I'm sure the methodology could be improved and your suggestion
might give different results than what they got. One distinction that
should be made though, I think, is personal/citizen "litter" vs
industrial/community "pollution."

(BTW, If anyone didn't see the recent Anacostia Watershed Society
posting to YouTube, this is evidence of some great work they're doing:
video footage of some really, really ugly, presumably industrial
pollution being dumped into a nearby tributary of the Anacostia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM5F4mOf9YE )

While some of our beaches may be untidy due to littering, the bacteria
that causes some of them to be closed is, I assume,
industrial/commercial/public in nature.  Obviously both are important
for maintaining our communities as both healthy and beautiful, but
strategies for dealing with them would be at least largely different,
I would think.

As far as finding evidence of litter or pollution in Riverdale's parks
and streams, I think this supports (or at least doesn't refute) my
point:  You are much more apt to find both litter and pollution in
less affluent communities.  The nexus of (relative) poverty and
(relative) powerlessness going hand in hand with less desirable living
conditions is nothing new in the annals of human history.

Please understand I'm not making or trying to make a case here for
fatalism or inaction.  Not at all. I was just sharing the findings of
one research effort which found that, contrary to some public
perceptions, overall our litter problem has continued to decline in
the U.S.  I'm inclined to think they're probably right,  granted that
as with all research, what you actually measure will have much to do
with the results you get.

More to the point, though, even if those researchers are correct, that
would in no way indicate that our litter problem here in Riverdale
Park isn't getting worse. I suspect that it is. The important thing is
that we seem to have a shared recognition that we have a problem here,
and that we'd like to do something about it.

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:54 PM, <bruce.wernek at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Dwight
>
> Two points
>
> 1)  These folks are measuring litter along streets or in metropolitan areas.  Water washes litter into the creeks and rivers.  If they really want to assess litter, this is were they should be looking.
>
> 2)  If our beaches are so clean, why are they routinely closed during the summer because the bacteria level in the water makes it unsafe for swimming.
>
> Don't take my word for it.  Check out either of our parks (in Riverdale) early on a Monday morning in the summer.  This is what I'm talking about.
>
> Bruce
>