Dorcas Sarpong
Summer Bridge
July 10, 2014
How Can Our Community Come Together to Help Stop
Littering in The Bronx River?
What is litter and how does it
affect human, animals, and the
environment? Litter consists of
waste products that have been
disposed improperly, without
consent, at an inappropriate
location. Litter can contaminate
soil and pollutes the air. Organic
litter in large amounts can cause
water pollution. Animals can also
get trapped or poisoned with litter
in their habitat.
The Bronx River is approximately 24 miles
(39 km) long, flows through southeast New
York in the United States. It is named after
colonial settler Jonas Bronck. The Bronx
River is the only fresh water river in New
York City. It originally rose in what is now
the Kensico Reservoir, in Westchester
County north of New York City. With the
construction of the Kensico Dam in 1885,
however, the river was cut off from its
natural headwaters and today a small
tributary stream serves as its source.
However,
things started to change;
Bronx River has been polluted for many
years. Because this situation is so far gone,
many people are not even thinking about
helping the river. People just litter anywhere
and anytime without even thinking about the
effects. Based on my observations, I saw
soccer ball, dead rats, and candy wrapper all
over in the river. This says that the people in
the Bronx don’t care about their
environment therefore they litter anytime at
the inappropriate place.
Littering
can have a positive impact
whereas negative impact. Littering benefit
some plants develop in many ways but it
also terminates other plants, environment
and even human. Littering in a community
also prevents many people from living there.
It also contaminates soil and pollutes the air.
It also brings insects like mosquitoes.
Littering things like tires can be very
harmful. Tires can become a breeding
ground for insects’ vectors which can
transmit disease to human. When tires are
burned, they can smolder for long period of
time releasing hundreds of chemical and
compounds that pollutes the air causing
respiratory illnesses.
Litter also carries important cost to the
economy. Cleaning up litter in the Bronx
can cost hundreds of dollar per ton, about
twenty times more than the cost of trash
disposal (garbage can). Open containers
such as paper cups or beverages can hold
rainwater, providing breeding locations of
mosquitoes.
How can the community come together to help
stop littering? Well, I suggest that they
provide more garbage cans. I also suggest
that they can do fundraising, do more
community service and lecture people about
the effects due to littering. Cleaning up our
community now might cost a lot of money
but still efforts are going on to clean the
river because if we don’t do that, then it’s
going to affect our future generations.