Inspired by the piece in The Guardian Environment Network written by Rachel Salvidge: ''England’s waters to remain illegally polluted beyond 2021'
Playing cars, running rivers
You too can remember the thrill of the moment
As we took the toy cars beyond the garden
For the first time
Assembling freedom
Under the fingernails, throwing up earth. I was seven then
Drawing the wheels of the car
Along my palms
A practice particularly urban
Feet turning the turf
For we started races – the rivers
You said, grabbing your bottle
Would form a challenge
I watched the movement
Drawn out in handfuls
As you tried to push streams, into the grass
Still to used to the lawn
Of your suburban house.
Half-appalled stare on a nine-year old brow
I saw your plans turn to plains
The water burst out.
You tried pouring it into course
But plastic made it warm, greasy, sluggish
Swept over our race course, turning
Our play into rubbish
As it still does today
Rivers catching same angst
Covering reflection
With buildings
But the same dirty
hands.
The news of Britain’s
failure to keep her waters clean has seemingly fallen by the wayside in recent
weeks. Attention seems to lie with attempts to control and regulate the course
of its flow, like a kind of ‘game’ we are playing with nature (to which the
poem alludes) – perhaps not surprising in light of the recent floods. But when
will we consider the contents? Water can wield devastation, and is tragic, but
what it is important to address going forward is the devastation we too have
inflicted on it. Right now the UK is set
to fail to reach basic ecological standards regarding the ecological condition
of her water bodies – much is polluted, poisoned and putrid. Surely a way
to go forward is consider cleaning and clearing our waters alongside the flood
defence effort?
When will we realise that we’ve been so much more than just
‘playing’ with water; we’ve been polluting it – at catastrophic levels, for
years. Recent news has confirmed that
UK water bodies – which include waterways such as streams and rivers – are
condemned to fail to meet recommended ecological standards by 2021. ‘Good’ was
the recommended ecological level – with the original deadline for the UK to
crucially improve the overall chemical and ecological status of its water being
set for 2015. Not only did the UK fail
this, but its anticipated failure to reach the 2021 recommendations puts it in
a position risking legal action from the European Commission. The reality
is this – a number of the country’s streams and rivers are ecologically damaged,
in poor condition and heavily polluted – and yet we carry on forward, adding to
the issue and inventing excuses, like children invent rules for a game.
But this is no game – this is the culture, nature and
natural habitat of Great Britain which is at risk. In order to address the
pollution of our rivers and streams, we have to take real responsive steps; wider
environmental action. The first step may involve considering your own actions
and emissions. Aspects include diverting waste away from our waterways and
increasing awareness of the river environment, starting with the young.
Encouraging conversation, conservation and cutting emissions – especially from
our cars. Summer-tinged streams may offer an idyll of child play in our heads,
but this isn’t childsplay, the reality
is that our rivers and streams are at poisonous levels and it is being
seriously underreported. We can’t just address them when they are affecting us
directly; because we affect them all the time.
Surely now is the
time for cleanliness to go forward with constructive defence?
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