July 13, 2019

ENGLAND: Glastonbury Festival Attendees Leave Plastic Bottles And Trash Strewn Across Grounds. The Irony, Glastonbury Festival Ran On A Theme Of Climate Change And The Environment. 🙄


The Sun published on Jul 1, 2019: Glastonbury fans leave thousands of plastic bottles and rubbish. Glastonbury Festival-goers left the site littered with thousands of plastic bottles despite this year's eco drive.
New York Post
written by Natalie Musumeci
Monday July 1, 2019

So much for being eco-friendly.

Attendees at Britain’s five-day Glastonbury Festival — which ran on a theme of climate change and the environment — left behind thousands of plastic bottles and trash, photos of the aftermath show.

Environmentalists like Sir David Attenborough praised organizers of the music fest in Somerset for going “plastic free” by banning the sale of single-use plastic bottles this year.

“That is more than a million bottles of water that have not been drunk by you. Thank you. Thank you,” Attenborough, 93, said to cheers and applause on Sunday, the last day of the festival.

Glastonbury co-organizer Emily Eavis, meanwhile, said the “most eye-opening part of the weekend for me was not seeing any plastic bottles in the bins or on the ground,” according to the BBC.

But post-festival photos told a different story — showing masses of plastic bottles and garbage strewn all over the 900-acre grounds.

Still, the on-site recycling team said it has seen “a massive reduction in the amount of plastic on the site this year — the least ever seen, by a distance,” the BBC reported.

When Glastonbury was last held in 2017, more than 1 million drinks in plastic bottles were sold. This year, there were zero, The Sun reported.

There were more than 850 water refill stations at the festival, according to reports, which noted long lines to fill up.

Festival officials said there was never a ban on the public bringing their own plastic bottles and added that all plastic and cans left behind will be recycled, according to the BBC.

“We feel that the public very much bought into our campaign to reduce, reuse and recycle and we’re very pleased with the results,” a festival spokesperson told the news site.
UPDATE 7/14/2019 at 12:59pm: For those of you wondering why I'm taking issue with Festival officials claims I'd like to explain. What I see here in the pictures shown of the aftermath of the Glastonbury Festival is the nurturing of an "entitlement" culture. On the one hand, you think you're helping the environment by solely focusing on plastic bottles. But on the other hand, you are allowing all attendees to freely throw their garbage on the ground. How is that a good role model? You're teaching them it's okay to throw your garbage on the ground because some one will clean up after you. Your attendees will take that same mindset with them when they leave your festival. So, it really doesn't matter that you banned the sale of plastic bottles. That's so superficial when you look at the totality of litterbugs you've enabled and unleashed on society as a whole.

I can't stand garbage. I literally clean up the streets and sidewalk around my home with my own broom and dustpan. I have witnessed people driving luxury cars and even "eco friendly" cars throw their garbage out the window onto the freeway and open their car door to throw out their garbage on the side of the road waiting at a red light on a freeway exit. In their minds, their garbage is some else's problem. Well, let me tell you something, your garbage is your responsibility and you've made your garbage all of our problem by being a self entitled douchbag. The garbage you've thrown onto the roads end up in the gutters get either carried away by the wind or down storm drains ENDING UP in the ocean.

I was curious to find out if England recycles their plastic waste. I'm shocked to find out that England exports their garbage overseas to be dumped in a landfill and not recycled. How selfish and hypocritical of you to make your garbage the world's problem. Plastic is not the problem. Plastic can be recycled successfully. The world has a waste management issue. Isn't China the world's worst toxic polluter on our planet? Toxic waste ends up in our ocean because of China and India irresponsibly allowing it to be dumped in their waterways. Why the heck would anyone think it's a good idea to export their garbage to China to be disposed of properly? Unbelievable. I'm sharing the article below.

The Guardian, UK
written by Nazia Parveen, North of England correspondent
Monday July 23, 2018

Millions of tons of waste plastic from British businesses and homes may be ending up in landfill sites across the world, the government’s spending watchdog has warned.

Huge amounts of packaging waste is being sent overseas on the basis that it will be recycled and turned into new products. However, concerns have been raised that in reality much of it is being dumped in sites from Turkey to Malaysia.

Every year, British households throw 22m tons of waste into the bin. Recycling rates have stagnated at about 44% and the UK is unlikely to hit its target of 50% by 2020.

Britain does not have the requisite infrastructure to recycle its own plastic waste, so it is sent abroad.

Packaging recycling obligations require more than 7,000 firms responsible for generating waste to demonstrate that a certain amount has been recycled.

But a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) criticised the Environment Agency’s oversight of the scheme in England.

Historically, British recycling has been sent to China. Its dominance in manufacturing meant that for years it was the world’s largest importer of recyclable materials. In 2016, it imported 7.3m tons of waste plastics from developed countries including the UK, the US and Japan.

British companies alone have shipped more than 2.7m tons of plastic waste to China and Hong Kong since 2012 – two-thirds of the UK’s total waste plastic exports, according to data from Greenpeace released last year.

But last summer the Chinese government announced it intended to stop the importation of 24 kinds of solid waste by the end of the year, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinks bottles, other plastic bottles and containers, and all mixed paper, in a campaign against yang laji or “foreign garbage”. These drastic restrictions resulted in traders looking for other countries to take in recycling waste.

A Defra spokesman said: “Since the current packaging producer responsibility regime was introduced, recycling rates have increased significantly. However, there is much more to do. We don’t recycle enough waste, and we export too much of it.

UPDATE 7/14/2019 at 2:56pm: I decided to dig a little more and this is what I found out below.

PRI.com
written by Patrick Winn
January 13, 2016

The planet’s seas are choking on our junk: Soda bottles, plastic bags and tons of cigarette butts. Distant spots in the ocean — called garbage gyres — have become vortexes where humanity’s trash bobs atop the water for miles on end.
It is a good goal to make America as a whole to aim to be the most environmentally conscious and responsible nation on the planet. We will still get blamed for the disgusting pollution in our oceans. Why? Because the guilty parties on the planet using our oceans as their dumping grounds need a scapegoat to blame for their crimes they have openly committed on all living things. Look at the elephant in the room please. (emphasis mine)
Worse yet, the filth floating on the surface accounts for only 5 percent of all the plastic trash dumped into the sea. According to Ocean Conservancy, a US environmental nonprofit, the other 95 percent is submerged beneath, where it strangles underwater creatures and wrecks the aquatic ecosystem.

It turns out that five countries are the leading contributors to this crisis. And all are in Asia.

In a recent report, Ocean Conservancy claims that China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are spewing out as much as 60 percent of the plastic waste that enters the world’s seas.
It saddens me to read this article and others like it that share the Ocean Conservancy report blame America and our consumption for the pollution of the oceans. Consumption is not the problem. Plastic is not the problem. Waste management is the elephant in the room that every one of you "climate change" or environmentally conscious people refuse to acknowledge. (emphasis mine)
As Asian economies rise, people have more cash to blow on Marlboros and Sprites at 7-Eleven. But the junk these habits produce often doesn’t end up in legit landfills.

In the five Asian countries listed above, only about 40 percent of garbage is properly collected. Across Asia, trash is often piled up in communal dumps where stray bits are swept up by the wind and cast into the ocean.

Even sanctioned garbage dump sites are sometimes intentionally set up near rivers that flow into the sea. The reason, according to Ocean Conservancy: “Waste will intermittently be carried away by heavy rains or current, refreshing the capacity of the dump to receive more waste.”
Now I'm going to share pictures shared in this article with their caption and point out what I see that I feel is overlooked. It really pains me to believe that it's being overlooked deliberately.
(emphasis mine)
Here is their caption under this photo above: A scavenger collects plastic for recycling in a river covered with rubbish in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 20, 2009.

What do I see? The focus is merely on the picking out the plastic while completely surrounded by garbage and not caring about the garbage polluting the water. Look at that horror.
Here is their caption under this photo above: A woman washes plastic in a river in Tianjin, China, Sept. 13, 2007.

What do I see? The focus is merely on the picking out the plastic while completely surrounded by garbage and not caring about the garbage polluting the water.
Here is their caption under this photo above: A boy collects plastic near a polluted coastline to sell in Manila, Philippines April 9, 2008.

What do I see? A boy surrounded by garbage that is polluting the water. These pictures are a good analogy to the Glastonbury Festival irony.
Here is their caption under this photo above: Indonesian fishermen on a polluted beach in Cilincing, North Jakarta, Indonesia June 5, 2013.

What do I see? Exactly what they stated, a polluted beach. Plastic is not the issue. Waste management is the issue. Responsibly disposing our garbage is the issue.

**********************

UPDATE 7/14/2019 at 4:42pm: I was curious to find out if there were any penalties in the United States for littering. I wish Los Angeles County would enforce the laws on the books for littering. I'm sharing with you what I found out below.

written by Jennifer Schultz and Mindy Bridges
[source: National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)]

States spend millions of dollars each year to clean up littered roadways, parks, and coastal areas. In addition to the direct cost of litter removal, litter also harms the environment, property values and other economic activity. The most common types of litter are food packaging, bottles, cans, plastic bags, paper and tobacco products. States can discourage littering through a variety of methods, one of which is to create and enforce criminal penalties that punish unwanted behavior. While all states have some type of litter law, penalties vary widely, based on the amount, type, and location of litter. In 10 states, for example, the weight or volume of litter determines the severity of the crime. Other states focus on the type of litter, imposing penalties for dumping large items, such as furniture or major appliances. Many states have also enacted legislation to address littering in certain places, such as public highways, coastal areas, and recreational areas.

For relatively minor cases, courts typically impose a fine and may order litter cleanup or community service. Fines range from $20 in Colorado to $30,000 in Maryland. In more serious cases, offenders may be subject to imprisonment, with sentences ranging from 10 days in Idaho to six years in Tennessee. Laws in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Louisiana also provide for suspension of a violators’ driver’s license in certain cases. Penalties in all states typically increase for subsequent convictions.

The table below summarizes state penalties for littering. Please refer to the specific state statutes for definitions of littering and other information.

Please CLICK HERE to read the table that list each state alphabetically.

Trash is strewn along the sand south of the San Gabriel River in Seal Beach, CALIFORNIA, on Monday, Feb 4, 2019. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Orange County Register
After storms, Seal Beach looks like a landfill blanketed with trash
written by Laylan Connelly
February 4, 2019
This is what happens when you throw your garbage on the roads. The end result of careless self entitled people. The runoff of storm drains on the sides of the roads end up in our ocean. This is exactly what I was writing about earlier. (emphasis mine)
Shopping carts, furniture, baby strollers, suitcases and orange cones were some of the bigger pieces of trash strewn on the sand with countless plastic bottles, baby diapers, and bits of Styrofoam mixed in with tree branches and twigs.

The “heartbreaking” scene in Seal Beach on Sunday shocked Trish Gussler, who traveled from Anaheim to the San Gabriel River for a gloomy morning beach walk to bird watch between the storms.

“It was horrifying, that’s the only way I could explain it,” she said. “It was phenomenally sad.”

During dry summer months, pristine Southern California beaches draw millions of visitors. But during the wet season after heavy storms, the beaches can look more like landfills as trash travels down waterways, onto the sand and into the ocean. The trash was a familiar sight along the coast, especially where inland rivers met with the ocean.

The area along the San Gabriel River, which borders Seal Beach and Long Beach, can be especially littered after it rains. The mouth of the river funnels runoff from 52 inland cities straight into the ocean, with trash and debris flowing down storm drains.
This is just the runoff from the San Gabriel River. There are many other runoffs. (emphasis mine)
“We test for enterococcus bacteria, an indicator species for worse types of bacteria like E. coli,” Conti said. “If enterococcus is present that means these other more serious, infection causing bacteria are most probably also present.”

According to the results, the levels of bacteria were off the charts — though not surprising to Conti, who knows the levels shoot up after storms when contaminants from runoff enter the ocean.

The concentration levels of bacteria per sample are reported as the most probable number, or MPN. The state standard MPN for water quality is 104.

The results showed San Gabriel River’s MPN was 4,374, Santa Ana River’s at 1,989 and San Juan Creek’s at 6,586. 😱

“An MPN of higher than 104 means signs should be posted warning people of the potential health hazard,” Conti said.

No signs were visible warning the public Monday morning, despite heavy rain through the weekend.

“It’s typical to have these numbers during large storm events; all the pollution and animal feces, or possibly human, is coming down stream from cities,” Conti said.

How to help:

Monthly cleanups are held by Save Our Beach at the San Gabriel River on the third Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to noon, rain or shine. Meet at the 1st street parking lot in Seal Beach.

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