Coco Plum Drive in Marathon, Florida, is a very affluent neighborhood, with some houses going for north of $20 million. But that didn't stop a local resident from dumping 240 cubic feet of garbage in the woods right next door.
According to the Tampa Free Press, John Clifford Cadwallader dumped just about every kind of trash imaginable, from used tents to food and beer cans.
Worse yet, Keys Recycling and Marathon Garbage Service are right around the corner from Coco Plum Drive. It took two trucks, filled to the brim, to haul off the garbage Cadwallader dumped in the woods, with recycling and legal trash disposal options right down the street.
It would be nice to say that this sort of casual ambivalence to the local environment, and the world as a whole, is a one-off thing, the result of a very tiny few bad actors.
Yet, according to Keep America Beautiful, Americans tossed 50 billion pieces of trash on U.S. roadways or waterways in 2020, averaging 152 items per citizen.
Cadwallader isn't a one-off; he's a symptom of a much larger issue, although littering in general is on the decline.
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It doesn't help that Coco Plum Drive is located in the Coco Plum Beach area, with incredible ocean views — a resounding example of stunningly beautiful areas throughout the Florida Keys. Throwing out trash here mars a beautiful natural area.
There is a bright spot, fortunately. The same Keep America Beautiful network that released the littering study is also responsible for picking up over half a billion pounds of litter and debris and recycling 250 million pounds of material throughout the past decade.
KAB isn't the lone nonprofit organization engaging in mass cleanup efforts either. Many state-level affiliates do the same, such as Keep Florida Beautiful, the Ocean Conservancy, and The Ocean Cleanup.
Local cleanup services are a phone call away for many, and joining these organizations fuels growth and expands cleanup efforts. Donating money to climate causes helps as well.
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Definitely 👍 In the Keys, the Clean Seas Florida Keys Program is focused on marine debris, while Plogging the Keys is a program that involves joggers picking up litter on the move.
There are organizations like these everywhere, and social media platforms like Meta and Nextdoor help connect local communities to clean up and properly dispose of or recycle litter.
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