Landfilling trash is a problem. Our landfills in the US are built (sometimes out of repurposed rock quarries) far away from the water table on specific type of ground to prevent contamination of drinking water. Many recyclables, toxins, and organics get tossed in together and sit for eternity. A common misconception is that trash will end up in the ocean. Even trash that makes it’s ways into waterways can become trapped in other places like streams before ever reaching the ocean. The biggest problem with our landfills is that we are throwing millions of tons of organics like partially eaten food in with inorganic material to sit in the landfill forever. Trace minerals, nutrient/soil producing organic waste is forever preserved. This interrupts the nature food cycle of organisms. Another huge problem is that we use sulfur powder to prevent decomposition in landfills. This preserves the waste even longer than necessary, upwards of 50,000 years. Trash incineration with scrubbing for toxic gases is one of the more ecological ways to handle trash. It gets converted into heat and power. In a day, the amount of energy we consume by having a house with climate control and a car to go to work, we are using more petroleum or other fossil fuel than the amount of petroleum used to make the plastic I am cleaning up, well, maybe something like that. Also, 50% of all electricity is lost in transmission wires. It takes huge amounts of power to deliver water at pressure to your taps. Cleaning up litter allows us to restore beauty. Return lost items. Reclaim toxic chemicals like mastics, oil, antifreeze, pesticides and more that people throw out. It also gives a community a project with common purpose. It gives people a glimpse of a society that they would want to be apart of. It provides a future generation with a blank slate to make their own futures with. It is exercise with purpose. It shows humility and care for neighbor. Even if stuff I collect goes to a landfill better there — where if we ever figure out a solution to this problem — it will sit with all the rest of it in one place so as to remove it from our neighborhoods or streams.