Outrageous Wetland Pollution In West Augustine

Over the years that I have lived in West Augustine, I've seen pollution growing in our local wetlands. I have seen trash bags full of people's garbage.

 

    I have seen metal and wooden fences in the wetlands, Styrofoam food containers and cups, plastic bags, fast food bags and much, much more. Most of all I have seen bottles - beer bottles, plastic water bottles, energy drink bottles, liquor bottles, even the free drinking bottles that our schools have provided to us students. 

 

 

    It is outrageous to me of how much trash is ending up back on the streets, when we just had a clean-up event the day before. What I have noticed is that more trash appears in the morning on a school day next to the local schools, and it turns out that in the morning, when parents wait to drop of their children, some of them might throw their fast food breakfast wrappers out of their car windows. 

One day, when I was walking to my elementary school, I saw a kid riding in his parents car throw his Happy Meal from McDonald's, right into the wetland next to the school.

   

 

 

 If you don't know what a wetland is, it is basically areas where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season. In other words, they are vital to the Earth's ecosystem. To see the wetlands near you, you can use this website to see wetlands like this. Below you can see just how much wetlands, we have here in West Augustine.

To get on this website just click on this URL- https://www.fws.gov/wetlands/data/mapper.html

 

Vice President of the West Augustine Nature Society,

 E.R, 6th grade