What would you do if a stranger completely trashed your house? I mean completely destroyed anything they can get their hands on, or maybe literally make your home a toxic place to be in? Yeah, that would be an absolute nightmare! Unfortunately, that is what we are consistently doing to each other on our island, and it is time to make a change
More often than not people think that leaving trash behind is an insignificant act. Probably because they either believe that someone else is going to pick up after them, or because they lack the knowledge of the impact of what trash can do to our environment and to each other as a society. Unfortunately, this first problem is causing severe environmental problems on our coasts which poison our foods with micro plastics which in turn produce carcinogens when we cook something like our favorite fish which was once thought to be one of the healthiest foods. This is because the heating of plastics produces a carcinogenic byproduct called dioxins. This massive outbreak of carelessness is also making our beaches a disgusting place to be in. This problem isn’t just in our natural environments but in all our cities as well. It’s not very difficult to spot trash anywhere you go on our Island and unfortunately this leaves a very bad impression on those who visit Puerto Rico.
And this is all because the majority is not acting to put a stop to the bad actions of the few in our communities when we are just as responsible for making change. Just like in our food, these plastics can also heat up with the sun and release these dioxins, whether in land or even in our oceans, further affecting our ecosystem.
A second problem is the use of thrill crafts on our beaches which are harming our endangered species in Puerto Rico, most specifically sea turtles. One significant characteristic of these turtles is that once they leave their birthing place, they will begin visiting wherever in the world they may wish to go, but the catch is that they will come back to it to lay their eggs in the same beach they hatched. They know exactly where they came from due to their capacity to detect the different magnetic frequencies of every different location on earth they may visit. In other words, they have an internal GPS in their biology. Nevertheless, the lives of sea turtles are just but one living example that shows us that this island does not just belong to humans, but to each of the unique species that make up our ecosystem and have also enjoyed its natural resources for thousands of years and it is our responsibility to take care of it. Our turtles are not the only ones suffering from the negligent use of our waters, our coral reefs are also being affected.
So, what can we do as mere individual, Puerto Rican citizens to solve both of these problems? Other than reducing our consumption and footprint, it is also our job to call our local representatives and demand action. If our beaches and coasts continue being a dangerous environment for our animals, in addition to it constantly being filled with trash, toxic waste, and plastics, we are further endangering these animals and putting them more at risk of extinction, even those who are not there yet. Therefore, we must demand changes in our education system by implementing discipline and respect from a younger age, in order to teach our society about the impacts of our decisions and demand that strong laws be set in place against littering and the consistent negligent use of water vehicles, in the hopes of it becoming heavily penalized. This is because people do not care about committing crimes that are not going to affect them just as they do with their actions or that just give you a fine. I am sure we have all driven above the speed limit before knowing the consequences of our actions. In conclusion, I believe new laws that penalize this type of behavior would be a realistic solution to these severe problems in the ecosystem of Puerto Rico.
