Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 27, 1995 TAG: 9503300047
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NANCY GLEINER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It was all part of the P.I.T.S. (Plastics in the Streams), a program Anderson, an outreach coordinator for the Roanoke Parks and Recreation Department, brings to classrooms to teach children about the dangers of mixing plastic and wildlife.
The pupils identified the trash strewn across their desks, then listed whether the items could harm wildlife if they ate them or were trapped in them.
If you figured out how many plastic items you use every day, you'd probably be amazed. Start in the morning with your hair brush, toothbrush (I hope you use it every day), comb, drinking cup in the bathroom, soap holder, sandwich bag, lunch box ... So far, that's seven items and you're not even out the door!
Where does it all go when you're done with it? Some of it goes to the landfill, some to recycling, some by the side of the road. Let's say your sandwich bag got caught in an updraft in the cafeteria (caused by all of the hot air) and went out an open window. It landed in the school yard, was blown onto the grass and was washed into the storm drain the next time it rained.
From there, it traveled to the Roanoke River, where it floated along until a fish thought it was a piece of food and tried to eat it. It got caught in the fish's throat and strangled it. So there was a dead fish floating down the river.
A bird spotted the fish and scooped it up in its beak, thinking it had a tasty meal. The bird ate the fish and the plastic bag ended up in the bird's stomach, where it was not digestible. After a short time, the bird died.
One sandwich bag two dead animals.
Plastic does make life easier for us - it's lightweight, safer than glass and lasts a long time, maybe too long. The problem with plastic is not so much in using it as in getting rid of it when we're done.
It's better to reuse or recycle plastic, but in the Roanoke area we can only recycle No. 1 or clear No. 2 plastic. When you go to the grocery store, check to see what kinds of containers your favorite brands come in. If you can't recycle them, you can write to the company and ask it to change the container. Heinz ketchup did just that.
Plastic floats on water, doesn't fall apart, almost never biodegrades (breaks up by itself) and can end up becoming a death trap to animals. They either eat it or get tangled in it.
Now it's trout season and you're going to the river to try your luck. Oops, your line gets caught on a tree limb. You cut it and take out some more. After a while, you get thirsty. You take your last can of Coke out of the Styrofoam cooler, pull it off the plastic ring holder and relax.
The fishing line you cut is tangled in some branches and your cooler, including the six-pack ring holder, has just fallen into the river.
You've just created some death traps for the river's wildlife.
The rings can get caught around the necks of fish, birds and other small animals and strangle them. Anderson showed a slide of a fish with a circle around its middle. The fish's circulation was cut off and it had died.
Try this: Take a rubber band and hook it onto your little finger, then pull it around the back of your hand and hook it onto your thumb. Now, put your fingers together and tuck your thumb under them. Bend your wrist. You're a duck with a six-pack ring holder stuck on your head. How can you get it off?
Birds' beaks or necks get trapped in drink-can holders and they starve to death. Some states have outlawed the plastic rings; others use biodegradable ones (they have a diamond in the middle), but even those take 90 days to disintegrate, plenty of time to harm wildlife.
``The best way to get rid of drink-can holders is to cut all the circles, even the little ones,'' Anderson said. It's important, though, not to cut the holders into small pieces because animals might mistake them for food. If a turtle starts to eat something it thought was food, it is not able to spit it out.
``My dad has had fishing line twisted around his foot under water, so he knows how it could entangle something,'' said Preston Moore, a fifth-grader at Fishburn Park. ``I've learned that plastic is more dangerous than what it appears to be.''
Anderson brought an injured friend to school with her. Major, an American kestrel (a type of hawk), lost a leg after it became tangled in fishing line. Now, he has to use his opposite wing as a crutch, and his weight on it keeps breaking off the feathers.
The fishing industry uses nylon or plastic nets that can be as large as 10 miles long. The fishermen spread them out on the water, leave them overnight, then pick them up with their catch trapped inside. Sometimes, that's not all that's trapped inside. Porpoises, turtles, sea lions and birds can get trapped, too, especially if the net breaks away from its markers and the fishermen never find it again. Those are called ghost nets.
Anderson threw a net over a pupil, pretending to be a sea lion. She challenged him to get out of it, keeping his legs crossed at the ankles (sea lions don't have legs) and keeping his hands in his pockets (they don't have hands, either). He could get help from other pupils, but some of them got caught in the net, too. They did do a great job of sounding like sea lions, though.
``Keeping the rivers and oceans clean starts at home,'' Anderson said. But, how do we, so far away from them, affect them?
To demonstrate, Anderson made a landscape out of a large plastic trash bag. She created a high area (the mountains) at one end, and a big dip at the other end (the bay). On the flat area - let's call it Roanoke - she poured drops of food coloring, each representing different types of pollution, plastic or otherwise.
One color was trash thrown in a yard, another fertilizer from tractors, another gas and motor oil from cars, another animal waste. She sprinkled on some dirt, representing erosion from construction sites, and bird seed, representing litter and trash from landfills. Then, she made it rain, using a spray bottle. All the pollutants ran together and ended up in the bay - ``pollution soup'' she called it. Even the students thought it was a ``pretty gross mess.''
``Even though we live up here in the mountainous area,'' Anderson said, ``what we do to our environment will affect even the oceans. So, remember, it's the P.I.T.S. - plastic and wildlife don't mix.''
The P.I.T.S. program is available to grades four through nine in Roanoke schools at no charge. Contact Edie Anderson, outreach coordinator, Roanoke River Outreach, at 981-1339.
by CNB