Why is littering bad for environment?

Littering is a very frequent form of environmental pollution and a clear sign that our society still has to learn a lot when it comes to a global environmental conscience. The most obvious form of pollution connected with littering is of course visual pollution because litter presents one of the worst sights that can be seen in nature.

Litter can disrupt the balance of many ecosystems because it can provide perfect breeding ground for many insects and rodents that not only harm our environment but can also carry different diseases.

Many animal species can get hurt while stepping on certain litter items and litter can also lead animals getting trapped and poisoned. Cigarette butts for instance, which are the most littered items in our planet, have been found in the stomachs of many fish, birds and whales, who have mistaken them for a food.

Littering can also sometimes lead to wildfires because it is possible for spark to hit a piece of litter like a paper bag and start a fire. Cigarettes could also start fire if not being properly put out prior to being littered.

Organic litter is particularly hazardous form of litter as it can even lead to a major water pollution and lead to a shortage of drinking water, for instance if there is garbage in a river then the water is no longer safe to drink. Organic litter has been also found to cause algal bloom in certain water bodies.

Many litter items are not biodegradable which means that their chemical decomposition takes a very long time and these items can therefore create long-term damage to environment (as this is the case with cigarette butts).

Decomposition of certain litter could also lead to even more greenhouse gas emissions and further contribute to climate change and global warming.

One of the worst examples of littering is no doubt The Great Pacific Garbage Patch where litter already has twice the size of France and continues to grow exponentially, representing major shame to our entire civilization.

Littering is a big issue in Pacific

Different kinds of litter are polluting many of our planet's seas and oceans and one of the worst affected areas is the North Pacific Gyre. It is not very difficult to imagine the level of marine pollution in this area of the Pacific when you know that this area is also often being referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The latest report about a huge littering problem in Pacific comes from the environmentalist Tim Silverwood, who in his recent latest voyage across the Pacific Ocean from Honolulu to Vancouver documented the level of marine pollution in this area.

Speaking at the „Keep Australia Beautiful“campaign he pointed out that "twice the size of France and growing exponentially, this sea of rubbish is threatening to become one of the great ecological disasters of our time“

The levels of pollution in this area are horrifying, even thousands miles from the nearest land mass, he observed different plastic debris, among other a toothbrush, pen caps, bottle caps and a toy plastic gorilla.

If this pollution issue remains unchallenged it will cause huge damage to entire marine environment and on a long run cause huge problems to an entire marine food chain in Pacific. Animals can digest this litter, some of which also has different toxic substances that can create serious health damage to not only the animals that digest it, but also humans after they consume affected fish or some other marine animal.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch formed gradually, over the years, as a result of marine pollution gathered by oceanic currents. According to some recent estimates around 80% of the litter comes from land-based sources and 20% from ships.

There still hasn't been any serious cleaning effort to tackle pollution in the North Pacific Gyre, only several researches with the aim to identify the best methods that would allow a safe removal of these pollutants from the ocean.

Littering - Definition and impact

In order to define the littering we need to define the litter first. The litter refers to different waste products such as containers, papers, and wrappers that have been disposed onto streets, countrysides and remote places, meaning that the simplest littering definition would be pollution of our environment by different litter waste.

Littering is much more serious problem than some think it is, not just environmental but also an economic problem too because countries spend huge sums of money to clean and remove litter out of our environment.

Not all litter gets taken care of in time, and wind often moves litter into rivers, streams and oceans, in fact some latest studies have concluded that up to 20% of litter ends up in different water bodies. For instance, about 80% of marine debris comes from land-based sources

Litter is also not a local problem as some think it is, because littering is happening worldwide. In US 75% of Americans admit to littering within the last 5 years, most of them being young people between age 20-35. Among people that litter the most are smokers, and cigarette butts are believed to be most commonly littered items.

Why do people litter? Is it because they are lazy and ignorant or is it because they do not care for our environment? Probably due to both of these reasons, and until people develop global ecological conscience littering will continue to harm our environment.

Littering is doing significant damage to our environment, not only from visual point of view, but it also harms plants and animals, and can also harm people because litter often contains germs that can lead to several diseases.

As said before global ecological conscience is the key to stop littering and this can be only achieved with adequate education. People need to learn how important our environment is, and not take everything for granted like everything is there just because of us.

Cleaning up litter in the U.S. currently costs about $11 billion per year.