San Francisco Chronicle/SF Gate/Lizzie Johnson, 11/6/15. "To reduce Ocean Beach trash, Park Service removes garbage bins."
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| Trash cans were removed here |
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| Trash can too small, no problem. |
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| And here |
Last week, nine bins were carted off between Stairwells 1 and 14. Ten remain between Stairwell
“If trash really starts to accumulate, we are going to put the trash cans back,” said Adrienne Freeman, public affairs specialist for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. .... Park officials are also considering replacing the cans with fewer — but larger — canisters. A similar program was successfully implemented at Fort Mason about a year ago. Read article.
Related, article. NBC Bay Area/Terry McSweeney 11/5/15, includes video 2:21 minutes, "Park Officials hope removing trash cans will help keep Ocean Beach clean." Richmond District Blog (San Francisco), Sara B./11/2/15, "Park Service removes garbage cans at Ocean Beach, calls it 'experiment'."
Note photographs of Ocean Beach trash by Sara B. from her article on the related Richmond District Blog (San Francisco).
Posted by Kathy Meeh
3 comments:
Back in the day, as our streets and parks became more and more cluttered with our garbage, something had to be done. A campaign was initiated which had the full support of the neatniks and politically correct. This campaign was appropriately called, "Keep America Beautiful". And with that campaign, along came the advent of trash cans and garbage receptacles everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. In fact, the campaign was so successful that its jargon was soon picked up by all. Offenders were labeled "litterbugs" and suffered the humiliation and scorn of an intolerant society. To a large degree, especially in the parks, the campaign was a success. Fast forward to 2007. The GGNRA is complaining about the volume of garbage at Mori Point. What do they do about it? Rather than relying on a proven solution, instead the GGNRA removes all trash cans at Mori Point under the misguided theory that people will now take all of their trash home. They didn't. Fast forward to 2015. Same complaints - too much trash at Ocean Beach. And once again, rather than relying on a proven solution AND ignoring their failure at Mori Point, the GGNRA removes all trash cans from the Ocean Beach promenade. And, as one would expect, garbage is already accumulating.
If you have read the GGNRA's latest General Management Plan, you would suspect the GGNRA is looking for failure as an excuse to lock us all out at Mori Point, Ocean Beach and more areas to follow. By the way, both Mori Point and Ocean Beach happen to be the most popular areas for dogs and their owners in their respective areas. Does anyone really think people will pick up dog waste, carry it around with them and then bring it into their car to dispose of at home?
This is tangential to the subject, but here goes.
All living things litter. That is how the life system works. We consume and excrete by which we mobilize and keep the cycle of life and food chain in motion. One species' refuse is another's meal. This has worked well for many millions of years. I would go so far as to claim this has been working since the development of life itself.
In the last 70-80 yrs, we developed plastics and durable packaging. In the near term they offer great utility. But they also have a tendency to break the food chain due to their very pro-longed bio-degration times. In addition, they may also be carcinogenic. They enter the food chain but do not bio-degrade.
These "modern developments" require us to change our instinct to litter. And there-in lies the problem.
Due to enormous advances in transportation technology, we have a situation where even bio-degradable waste is misplaced. I am not exactly sure there is a solution to this problem by the way of trash containers.
I truly believe that it require a fundamental reversion to our previous way of life and consideration of use of various "modern packaging materials".
Just a side comment on this discussion. Litter cans at the beaches and parks are used by citizens to dump their personal household trash and are filled when the people who need them are looking for space. We dump the beach parking lot cans once and sometimes twice a day when the weather is good. People know when we dump them and they are full again within an hour.
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