Free Republic

When the European settlers hit Plymouth Rock in 1620, North America presented newcomers with pristine wilderness, pure water, fresh air and endless top soil for growing food. Across America, anyone could drink from every lake, river or stream without fear of being poisoned. Not one speck of litter of any kind dotted what was to become the United States of America, Mexico and Canada. Today, in 2011, plastic, glass, rubber, chemicals, metal, paper, oil, gasoline and a growing number of contaminants cover North America. We Americans inject over 80,000 chemicals into the air, land and water 24/7. We toss our...

Washington (CNN) - If the federal government shuts down come Friday, House Speaker John Boehner may be in for quite a mess at his Washington, D.C. residence if some Facebook users have their way. A Facebook event, entitled "If Boehner shuts down the government I am taking my trash to his house," has popped up and is gaining steam as the shutdown showdown ramps up on Capitol Hill. If the federal government shuts down, one of the District's services that will stop is trash pickup. "Speaker John Boehner is ready to shut down the government, including District of Columbia city...

Personal responsibility is demonstrated in many ways. Picking up one’s trash after an event is a demonstrated characteristic of personal responsibility. On Saturday the Socialists marched on Washington to demonstrate their support for Barack Obama and the current Socialist controlled Congress. Thousands of people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for a march to call for One Nation Working Together that featured civil rights leaders, labor leaders, environmental and peace activists, faith leaders and celebrities with the intent of voicing concerns on jobs, for justice, immigration reform and for education for all. When they departed, they left the Mall covered with...

National Mall Left Spotless After Beck Rally (Video)

Prowling these border dumps provides the equivalent of a graduate-level seminar on what illegal immigration really is, and as importantly, what it's not. We know the crossers are a religious bunch, because of the Catholic medallions, statues and Bibles they drop, and we know they're superstitious. The litter almost always includes garlic cloves: Illegals hang them from backpacks in the false belief that the scent will keep rattlesnakes away from their campsites. Some call illegal aliens "undocumented," but the truth is they have documents falling out of their pockets, literally. Examine the ground, and you'll find driver's licenses, birth certificates...

London, England (CNN) -- Research teams at the Danish Golf Union have discovered it takes between 100 to 1,000 years for a golf ball to decompose naturally. A startling fact when it is also estimated 300 million balls are lost or discarded in the United States alone, every year. It seems the simple plastic golf ball is increasingly becoming a major litter problem. The scale of the dilemma was underlined recently in Scotland, where scientists -- who scoured the watery depths in a submarine hoping to discover evidence of the prehistoric Loch Ness monster -- were surprised to find hundreds...

Speed camera maker sets up program allowing Baton Rouge, Louisiana to issue $167 automated litter tickets. Speed camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) next month will use its automated ticketing expertise to run a litter camera program for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Under first-of-its-kind initiative, city workers will drive around photographing neighborhoods with special cameras hooked into a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite tracking device. The workers will be looking to capture homes that might have litter, weeds or trash on their lawn so that a hefty fine can be imposed. "The mayor's office has put together a new enforcement program...

A shopkeeper has cut litter in her village by 40 per cent by writing children's names on their sweet wrappers. Yvonne Froud, 52, marks each wrapper, crisp packet and drinks container with the name of the buyer using a black indelible marker pen. Litter louts who drop their rubbish are shown the evidence and temporarily banned from her shop or told to go on a litter-pick. The two-week scheme has been so successful Yvonne might extend it to adult shoppers at her post office and stores in Joys Green, Glos. She said yesterday: "I was so disgusted by the litter...

The litter on the National Mall after the Barack Obama inauguration was incredible. Barack Obama spoke to the need for more personal responsibility. Let's start by everyone cleaning up their own trash!

Inaugural revelers are lucky they didn't get fined for littering. As crowds cleared the city Tuesday, their trash covered the National Mall and Washington Monument grounds after President Barack Obama's inauguration. They left behind plastic bottles, newspapers, food wrappers, gloves and even American flags they had been waving. Trash bins overflowed with items people tossed.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A proposed strategy for reducing ocean litter calls for a statewide ban on foam food containers, fees for using plastic and paper bags, and making producers responsible for the collection and disposal of packaging. The California Ocean Protection Council announced its plans (PDF [319KB]) earlier this month and voted on actions for preventing and reducing waste that could end up in the ocean. The state council also aims to change producer and consumer behavior with its three recommendations for reducing packaging waste: adopting extended producer responsibility, prohibiting certain items and charging fees for items that commonly become...

Unravelling The Mystery Of The Kitty Litter Parasite In Marine Mammals ScienceDaily (Jun. 5, 2008) — Researchers at California Polytechnic State University have discovered what may be a clue to the mystery of why marine mammals around the world are succumbing to a parasite that is typically only associated with cats. The key may just be the lowly anchovy, according to research presented today at the 108th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Boston. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite which causes toxoplasmosis, considered to be the third leading cause of death attributed to foodborne illness in...

He's picking up 80 bags of trash a day in return for donations TORONTO (Sun Media) - Marc the Litter Guy needed money to pay the rent but he didn't want to panhandle. So the 30-year-old got some garbage bags and put a sign on his back saying he was cleaning the city for donations. "I needed to make my own job, so I thought I'd go around and clean the streets. I wear a sign -- it tells what I'm doing and asks for donations -- but I don't ask for money verbally, I leave it up to people,"...

This week's Forbes has an article penned by Fuller Torrey on "Cats and Schizophrenia." Besides being hard to access the article is short and leaves out some information that tones down the alarming nature of the data. Below is an exerpt of a Corante article that fills the data in. Carl Zimmer's article begins with data on rats and cats suggesting that rat behavior is indeed changed by toxoplasmosis. He then goes on to discuss the specifics in humans. "...The Oxford scientists knew that humans can be hosts to Toxoplasma, too. People can become infected by its eggs by handling...

Mom has quadruplets 3 years after triplets By FRANCISCA ORTEGA, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 23 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - With fertility drugs, Angela Magdaleno had triplets three years ago. Last week, she had quadruplets — without fertility drugs. Her two boys and two girls were healthy and doing well Wednesday after being born July 6 by Caesarean section in what doctors said was a rare occurrence of multiple births. Magdaleno, 40, said she was shocked when her doctor told her she was pregnant with four babies. "I didn't know what to do," she said in Spanish as she...

Workers Remove Litter from Iraqi Streets The street-cleaning project focuses on the busiest streets first, then moves to residential areas. By U.S. Army Spc. Cassandra Groce 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment HAWIJA, Iraq, July 11, 2006 -- Piles of trash and litter, the scourge of many Iraqi cities, are being removed by local workers from the street and alleys of Hawija, Iraq.Sanitation has been a continual concern for Coalition Forces and the Iraqi leadership. The street-cleaning project currently cleans the busiest streets, but will soon move to residential areas. The project employs many civilians. “This was a good project...

The streets of San Francisco, which once had their own TV show, are now home to hundreds of old car tires. Also paint cans, concrete chunks, microwave ovens and shattered windowpanes. Plus enough smelly, defunct mattresses, easy chairs and sofas to furnish half the town in cast-off furniture. "What a mess,'' said Nuru, standing atop a small mountain of worn-out tires. This month, the city has assigned a pair of trucks and a bulldozer on a mission to clean up the illegal dumps. It's a nice try, say residents, but it's a little like Sisyphus pushing his famous rock up...

Tens of thousands of 'trucker bombs' litter roads --- SEATTLE — Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs. Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look. "As soon as you look for it you’ll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington state's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It’s just gross." They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full...

Alan Coffey helps clean up canyon as he keeps watch with Minuteman Project BY BILL HESS Saturday, April 9, 2005 2:49 PM MDT Herald/Review STUMP CANYON - The San Pedro Valley looks peaceful when seen from 5,500 feet up in the Huachuca Mountains. But looking at the ground can make the sight turn from beautiful to ugly. Trash left by untold numbers of illegal immigrants who use the paths in the mountains and canyons as their way north into the United States is spread around. Piles of plastic water and soda bottles, backpacks, clothing, airline tickets, toothbrushes, tubes of toothpaste...

Phoenix resident Alan Coffey, a Minuteman Project volunteer, fills a bag with clothing and other debris left by illegal immigrants near Stump Canyon Friday. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) STUMP CANYON - The San Pedro Valley looks peaceful when seen from 5,500 feet up in the Huachuca Mountains. But looking at the ground can make the sight turn from beautiful to ugly. Trash left by untold numbers of illegal immigrants who use the paths in the mountains and canyons as their way north into the United States is spread around. Piles of plastic water and soda bottles, backpacks, clothing, airline tickets, toothbrushes,...