Collected trash at Belle Haven Park
They found bagged dog poop, a case of empty beer bottles, soiled diapers, soggy socks, combs, cigarette butts, cigarette lighters, a metal grill, a mattress, a shopping cart, lumber, a foam pillow, two tires, fast food debris and bottle caps. Plastic beverage bottles and aluminum cans seemed to self-multiply. Ayne Whitehead lugged out a rusted iron pipe. Her friend found a shapely bluish vodka bottle. These are just some of the items collected at the March 22 mega-trash cleanup sponsored by the National Park Service, the Friends of Dyke Marsh, the Friends of the Mount Vernon Trail, the Potomac Conservancy and Blue Star Families Connect.
For two hours or so, volunteers ages 8 to 80 combed the Potomac River shoreline, the George Washington Memorial Parkway borders and the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve.
The grand totals: 181 volunteers from all over Northern Virginia collected 2,505 pounds, a ton and a quarter, of trash and provided more than 400 hours of volunteer work, said Scott Hill, Volunteer Coordinator for the Parkway.
Michelle Black, Outdoor Leader for Blue Star Connect Outdoors (BSCO), said, “Our families were truly honored to take part in the mega-trash event. This effort reminded us how important it is to give back, take care of our parks and come together as a community.” BSCO connects military families with their local parks to promote well-being and strengthen community bonds.
The Most Common Litter
Jen Cole, Director of Clean Fairfax, says the most common trash items found in cleanups are cigarette butts and single use plastic items like bottles and food service items. Cigarette butts, most of which are made of cellulose acetate, a plastic, are the most frequently littered item in the state, nation and world, according to Clean Virginia Waterways. Many are transported from outside buildings and parking lots into stormwater systems and ultimately end up in streams and rivers.
A September 2024 Associated Press article reported that 57 million tons of plastic pollution is created worldwide every year, enough pollution to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as high as the Empire State building, wrote Seth Borenstein. After cigarette butts and food wrappers, plastic bottles and bottle caps rank third and fourth in Virginia’s top ten debris list, Clean Virginia Waterways found.
Around 300 million plastic bags end up in the Atlantic Ocean, estimates Litter Free Virginia. In 2022, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors enacted a $.05 bag tax on single-use plastic bags, an action that many credit with reducing their use and presence in the environment.
Single-use foam cups and food takeout containers are a common type of plastic pollution. Styrofoam or polystyrene, used for coolers, cups, carryout “clamshells” and packaging breaks apart, easily blows around and floats in water. It usually breaks down into small pieces. Birds and other animals mistake the tiny pieces for food which can lead to their death.
Starting July 1, 2025, Virginia will require food vendors that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations to stop using polystyrene containers. On July 1, 2026, smaller food vendors must phase them out. Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed delaying the effective dates. The state legislature retained the deadlines and on March 24, the governor proposed a budget amendment to again delay the deadlines to 2028 for large chains and 2030 for smaller firms.
More Harm
Some plastics take hundreds of years to decompose. Some contain toxic chemicals. Most plastics break down into smaller fragments, called microplastics, that can enter the food web and be ingested by aquatic organisms, fish, birds and other wildlife. Microplastics are ubiquitous, wrote Amundalat Ajasa in the March 13 Washington Post. They have been found in human organs and bloodstreams.
Plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans are approximately two and a half times more frequently littered in Virginia than in states with what are called “bottle bills,” programs in which people pay a refundable deposit and return bottles for reuse or recycling. According to Wikipedia, the beverage container cycling rate is around 33 percent nationally, but states with beverage container deposit laws have a 70 percent average rate of container recycling. Despite some advocates’ efforts in Richmond over the years, the Virginia General Assembly has not passed a container deposit law.
The USA of Trash
The United States is the world’s largest generator of waste, reported Forbes in January, the country that has less than five percent of the world’s population but generates 12 percent of the planet’s solid waste or garbage. Each American generates over 1,700 pounds a year. These numbers have earned the U.S. the title “trashiest country on the planet,” one with “a throwaway culture.”
The National Park Service has a motto: “Leave no trace, pack it in, pack it out.” Apparently, given the 2,205 pounds of trash collected in just two hours in this small slice of Northern Virginia, many have not gotten the message.