Angela, CUR - Oregon Observations Applied to Volusia County

Imagine something in your house springs a leak – in my case it was the toilet tank – while it is certainly pertinent to soak up the water and get rid of it, you also need to shut off the source because otherwise you will be cleaning up water forever, and ever, and ever…to infinity and beyond.

That is how I feel about plastic in the ocean. While there are potential solutions in the works to collect some of the debris floating out there, such as the Ocean Cleanup Array, we need to stop the problem at its source – or in plastic’s case: sources.

During my Individual Research Project (pertaining to plastic on Florida's beaches), I learned plastic ends up in the ocean via various means, including shoreline garbage dumps, shipping vessels, visitors to the beach, as well as rivers and storm drains. The following observations pertain to keeping plastic from entering the last two of those contributors in Volusia County.

Observation 1: My new town in Oregon uses tall bins with lids for my recycling – the same type of containers provided for your regular garbage. While living in Deltona, at the end of every weekly waste collection day I came home to a road littered with recyclable items. I blame this on the small lidless collection containers. Further, on my drives along 415 to Daytona Beach, I witnessed plastic and cardboard items being jettisoned from these bins as vehicles whizzed by and created gusts of wind. Sadly, I’m no longer at Daytona State College, but should the opportunity for a community improvement project arise: could a group of students convince the local waste management services to change the recycling bin design to help keep plastic from entering rivers and storm drains?


Observation 2: Until my research project, I was unaware that waste can end up in rivers, e.g. a cigarette thrown out of a car window or small plastic debris from fireworks can get washed into storm drains and then into a river. Walking around my new environment, both in the suburbs and in the middle of the city, I am constantly made aware that storm drains dump into rivers; I don’t remember seeing anything of the like in Deltona. If I had to do another Geographic Information Systems project at Daytona State College, I’d be interested in mapping storm drains, rivers, and other bodies of water in Volusia County. Once a map is made, if there are any storm drains dumping into any bodies of water, I’d do field research on those spots. Any findings during this research may also be applied to a community improvement project.

Cover to storm drain on sidewalk, actual opening is to the left
of this where the road meets the curb of the sidewalk.