Yesterday, while on a walk in my neighborhood, I found five plastic water bottles lying beside the side of the road.  Ordinarily, I would have looked away, blotting the images of litter from my mind. I would have focused instead on the beautiful flowering trees, the daffodils and tulips. But, with my sharpened awareness from this project, I gingerly picked up the bottles and took them home.

I was wondering, “How did these get here?” This seemed like a lot to find on one walk, in one mile, on one side of the street, in a generally tidy neighborhood. True, it was on a main road leading down to Highway 9 and the Brightwater “water treatment” facility. Do people still throw garbage out their car windows, as they drive by? I know that was common back in the 1960’s, but now, in “green” Washington? I find it hard to imagine. Or a jogger, drinking from a bottle of water in the middle of a run, and when the water is gone, hurling the bottle onto the side of the road as they move past? “Out of sight, out of mind?”

Maybe my neighbor’s recycling bins were overflowing, and a few bottles strayed onto the grass. I hope that’s what happened.

Maybe this is my little slice of evidence that really 80% of disposable plastic water bottles are not recycled.

I’m thinking of building a yard sculpture, creatively recycling the bottles I find. At least this would keep them out of the landfills, or worse, the waterways and ocean (unless we have a huge tsunami that washes them away).

There is no “away” to throw things.

by Marjorie Gray