The Pros And Cons Of Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads is surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. This area is well known for its beautiful scenery such as beaches, state parks, battlefields, wineries, and amusement parks. Each year thousands of tourists travel from across the country to come explore this wonderful area, in which most of the businesses in Hampton Roads rely on the tourist season to keep their business afloat. Unfortunately, the scenery that the locals and tourist enjoy is being taken over by waste. This issue can easily be prevented if everyone including residents, tourist, and businesses would start recycling more. Not enough people are recycling and instead are throwing their recyclable items in the trash. As a result, it goes to a landfill, not

(CITE)** Every day the rivers, bay, and ocean in the Hampton Roads area are being pumped with litter such as plastic bottles, beer cans, and plastic wrappers. Since plastic is not biodegradable it takes thousands of years to decay. You are unable to burn plastic without polluting the air because it releasing dangerous toxic chemicals. As a result, it has poisoned the sea and wild life with toxics from the massive amount of plastic and litter in the ocean. ***According to the Department of Earth Sciences from Montana State University, each year 100,000 sea turtles and birds are dying because of digesting and being tangled in plastic. The chemicals found in plastic has been released into the water and atmosphere, in which fish become contaminated from the chemicals in the water. (CITE)** Sea animals and other wildlife are not the only ones at a health risk, it has become a major health risk for us humans too. From the toxic waste that our food chain has digested, the plastic is now showing up in our food. Some of the foods like fish, crabs, shrimp, and lobster have been contaminated with dangerous toxics. Some of the dangerous toxics that has been in the food we eat

The Virginia Department of Environmental Qualities has a few programs and services already implemented to help improve recycling such as Bay Disposal and Recycling, Adopt a Highway, and Trash Pickup Program for inmates. The Adopt a Highway program is when a group of individuals or a community adopts a part of a roadway to pick up litter. Since the program has been implemented it has shown little success in keeping our streets and waterways clean. The Bay Disposal and Recycling is a curbside recycling service. They charge residents and businesses a fee in order to recycle and provide little information on what items can be recycled. They do not provide any information on where to drop off other items that can be recycled but are not able to be picked up by the curbside recycling service such as computers or tires. By poorly educating the community, people will not be interested in recycling and will tend to litter or throw the recyclable items in the trash or on the streets. The program through the prison or jail for inmates to pick up trash on the side of the roads is paid by the taxpayer’s money. By enforcing the bottle redemption system, it would save residents and businesses money and will encourage them to recycle more. The bottle redemption system will truly improve the recycling crisis in the Hampton Roads area. By enforcing the Bottle