ROCHESTER, N.Y. – For the first time in several years, we had a real winter and when the snow melted it exposed what feels like more trash along streets and sidewalks than ever before.
News10NBC’s Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean walked with David Masur, an advocate for Environment New York, at the entrance to the Inner Loop heading north where the trash is unbelievable.
Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “When you stand here and look at this what do you see?”
David Masur, Executive Director, PennEnvironment: “Well certainly you see a lot of blighted green space and a lot of litter. And sadly I think that can be pretty common as winter ends and spring begins.”
Berkeley Brean: “What’s the solution here?”
David Masur: “The real solution is we have to stop the source of a lot of this pollution at the beginning. We have these things we use for a couple of minutes – plastic wrap, plastic packaging – and then we’re supposed to throw it away but often there really is no way.”
A survey by Keep America Beautiful says there are about 50 billion pieces of litter along American roads and waterways. That’s 152 pieces of garbage per person. The city announced the next Spring Clean Sweep is May 3.
Berkeley Brean: “Do clean ups work?”
David Masur: “Well I think clean ups can work for a short period of time. Until we start coming up with a plan to making the companies responsible for those products instead of making us responsible and finding a way to have a closed loop with our waste, I think sadly we’ll keep having a litter problem.”
Masur pointed to plastic in the weeds.
David Masur: “You see a bunch of single use plastic bags which in theory are banned in New York State. Again – they’re not recyclable in any way.”
He then found a glass bottle with an antiquated 5 cent deposit.
David Masur: “Maybe if New York raised the rates and you could get a quarter, someone would come along and take it to get it recycled because it has a greater value. And there’s a plastic bottle over here….”
It ended up being a glass bottle that is not returnable in New York.
David Masur: “So you’ll notice here it doesn’t mention New York. It says California, Hawaii, Maine and Oregon. And so that disincentivises someone to bring that back to the recycling bin to get the deposit because you can’t get the deposit because of a big loop hole in New York State laws.”
The state controls this road. They close the loop to clean it a couple of times a year. News10NBC asked the DOT when it’s going to do that and it’s working on the calendar.
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