Save the Earth

[+KazumiSun]

Does anyone else worry about the gorilla in the closet about this hobby? On any given day, there can be tens of thousands of geocachers, burning up gallons upon gallons of gasoline as they drive from cache to cache. I know cachers who literally drive all day long from cache to cache. Power trails are often done with one person remaining in the car (idling = more polution), while the other person finds/signs. I like the concept of geocaching, but as an environmentalist, I just can't justify the burning up of our precious earth driving from cache to cache. So I limit my caching to caches that are enroute or near where I am already going, or to ones that I can bike or walk to. I wonder what others think about this, and how we might be able to make this a greener hobby. Everyone can't afford an electric car.

Hmmmm. My perfect geocaching day is driving to park/reservation then hiking to find as many cache I can....I try to be more mindful of my foot print, however you bring up a good point, thanks

[+Sagefox]

A hundred years ago there was a public dump site in California. It is now known as Glass Beach. All of the dumped stuff eventually returned to nature gradually, except for the glass, which was rounded into colored pebbles.

 

 

Any similar dump site today, in the future would be called plastic bottle beach, and have released harmful BPAs and other chemicals into the earth.

 

We lived one mile from this beach for 30 years and had several caches in that area. It was not only 100 years ago, the dump was still active until the sixties or early seventies and a lot more than glass was dumped there. Bad stuff. The stuff was buried as the trash heap progressed seaward and after the dump closed the ocean started digging away at it and all the non-biodegradable junk, not just the glass, was being gradually pulled onto the beach.

 

Glass Beach was on private land but now is a publicly owned and maintained property which is a good thing because it provides beach access but what happens to public properties with toxic waste sites? They get cleaned up. Now there is no more glass to be ground into colorful beach sand and the longshore currents are slowly removing the glass. Soon it will be just another normal beach... but a public one.

 

I was born about 1/4 of a mile from that beach. When the dump was still active people would literally pull up to the edge of the bluff and throw their garbage into the ocean.

 

NYPC, I'm guessing you were born in the old coast hospital on Main Street which closed in the seventies and has been a B&B for many years.

[+TheWeatherWarrior]

Yes....but who cares. I want to sail the Arctic passage. I look forward to global warming. It is a good thing!

 

BTW. I suspect one hurricane produces more trash than all the geotrash combined if that is of any consolation.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

 

I was born about 1/4 of a mile from that beach. When the dump was still active people would literally pull up to the edge of the bluff and throw their garbage into the ocean.

 

NYPC, I'm guessing you were born in the old coast hospital on Main Street which closed in the seventies and has been a B&B for many years.

 

Yep. I went to visit my grandfather (who since passed away at the age of 101) several years ago and stayed at the B&B on my birthday. I stayed in the room that was used as the delivery room when it was a hospital. My aunt still has a house in town but mostly lives in a house out on the olympic peninsula. My uncle was a commercial fisherman out of Noyo harbor and bought the house up in Washington when the local fishing was depleted.

 

 

[+Sagefox]

Yep. I went to visit my grandfather (who since passed away at the age of 101) several years ago and stayed at the B&B on my birthday. I stayed in the room that was used as the delivery room when it was a hospital. My aunt still has a house in town but mostly lives in a house out on the olympic peninsula. My uncle was a commercial fisherman out of Noyo harbor and bought the house up in Washington when the local fishing was depleted.

 

It is nice to hear your story. We had a house eight blocks from the B&B and I worked two blocks north of it for several years. Small world. Thanks.

[+redants]

In a million years all this will be destroyed and forgotten anyhow. There will be no records or evidence that any of this ever existed. Everyone laughing, crying, living, and dying will be gone like a dream that never happened at all. So what's the point?

Yep. +1

[+redants]

In a million years all this will be destroyed and forgotten anyhow. There will be no records or evidence that any of this ever existed. Everyone laughing, crying, living, and dying will be gone like a dream that never happened at all. So what's the point?

Yep. +1