We all know the disgusting sight. The foul smell of rotting matter in the leaves, alongside styrofoam underneath plastic bottles. As the rain washes crushed soda cans down into the river, slowly destroying its bright colors. Devastating, isn’t it? Littering is a natural crime, and will eventually destroy our river if no one intervenes.

I’ve been noticing a problem in Malden, and that waste is becoming problematic. Litter is everywhere, outside my house, or near my school. This is problematic due to the Malden River being the main body of water in this community. It has gotten polluted and mistreated over the years and is still contaminated with trash. 

To be specific, the river's pollution has gone on for years and has negatively affected people. A little over a century ago, companies used to neglect the Malden river. It was often the recipient of water pollution, and was left contaminated for years. While that thankfully has stopped, the river will never fully be the same again, especially since pollution has increased modern days with land waste. This is why Friends of Malden River have united in their efforts of cleaning it. Despite their efforts, it's still going to be a problem unless we attack the source issue.

Because of a lack of responsibility, Malden’s population has a problem with waste management and littering, which negatively affects land, and is hazardous to the aquatic life of the Malden River. While this is personal responsibility and choice, it's mainly the fault of government officials, who don't enforce policies about pollution. 

Efforts aren’t put into waste management, nor is it put into educating people on it. According to Mass.gov, Malden makes a moderate amount of waste every year, and the number’s slowly increasing. Not only that, the recycling system is flawed. Many people these days improperly recycling, attracting rodents. (Sources: https://www.mass.gov/doc/maps-how-much-trash-did-we-throw-out-2011-22/download https://www.cityofmalden.org/238/Trash-Recycling Because of this, it’s likely more litter will end up in the stream, which will negatively impact an abundance of marine life, and possibly us in the future! What if the water you're drinking right now had someone's filthy styrofoam container, which was used to hold moldy mac and cheese?

Not only that, there's a problem with plastic. More bottles (glass and plastic) are getting littered, thrown out, or burned instead of properly recycling, which is especially bad due to how easily recyclable they are. It’s said 6 million tons of waste is put in landfills, and that waste isn’t being managed well, threatening the environment. (Source: https://pirg.org/massachusetts/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Better-Bottle-Bill-Factsheet-H3289-S2149.pdf

Some people may believe the river’s fine. After all, it has been one and a half centuries, and the excessive pollution has already ceased. It’s fine for human life to enter. Plus, the Friends of Malden River are already doing a good job.

Ok, but compare humans to rabbits, mosquitos, flowers, and more valuable, fragile species that could live around the river ecosystem. Just because it’s fine for us doesn’t automatically mean it’s fine. And who’s saying pollution stopped? Just because people are doing something doesn’t give us the right to do nothing as well. To reiterate, the problem will keep on happening unless we identify and attack the root causes.

In order to prevent pollution, we should take a stand immediately and invest more money into proper waste management. We'll also need to encourage our government officials to be less lenient about this filthy problem and fund more into people cleaning up waste from the river, and putting policies about litter.

- A.A