Beach litter is a huge problem around the world. Everyday hundreds of cigarettes, plastic bottles, food wrappers, and so much more is found on the beach. I chose to find solutions for this problem because it hits home with me. I live not five minutes from the beach and every time I go I am disgusted to see the amount of unnecessary trash on the ground. Beach litter is a problem that can be avoided, but it is present and a solution needs to be found. That is exactly what I have done.

Beach Litter

How does beach litter affect households in the area, businesses, the government, and the rest of the world?

Households:
Workers at beach businesses rely on their income from high tourism times of the year. If tourism drops because the beach litter has gotten so bad, then businesses lose money and need to lay off workers. Their income is cut off and this could lead to not being able to pay for their house. This could highly affect their lives as well as the towns income because they are no longer paying property taxes.

Businesses:
When there is litter on the beach, it attracts less tourists. When there are less tourists in the coastal towns, businesses get less customers. With less customers, they do not make as much money and may be forced to lay off employees, or worse, shut down their company.


The Government:
With less customers, beachfront businesses have to let off workers meaning less income taxes going to the national government. The need for manpower to clean the beach causes the state government to pay for it. The local government could be affected if people living on the shore decide they don't want to live on a dirty beach and move. The local government would then not be collecting their taxes and would not be able to give as much money to schools.

The World:

Litter on beaches can affect both the land and the sea. If litter gets into the ocean, it can travel all over the world causing the under water environment to suffer and become polluted. Animals and habitats get sick and ruined by litter and pollution. Litter on land can have a similar affect as in the water. The trash can get into many animals' habitats and sicken the animals. It can also ruin the ground by polluting all over the world.

Coastal Cleanup Programs

What are the necessary conditions for any possible solution to work?
For any possible solution to eliminate beach litter to work, the state government must get involved by either hiring laborers or increasing littering fines.


Are there budget or labor concerns?
The solution that involves hiring people to clean up the beach litter both labor and budget intensive, but to increase fines on littering, nothing but support is needed.


Does the public need to be aware of and support the solution?
The public will need to be aware of both solutions because if the solution to hire workers to clean up the beach is chosen, then the community would have to pay more in taxes. They would not necessarily need to be in support of the increase of beach litter fines.


What challenges are there to implementing each solution?
To implement the hiring or beach cleaners, the local and state government will need to work together to get the funds to pay workers so this could be a challenge alongside getting the approval of townspeople to pay more in taxes for this cleanup. A challenge that may be faced to implement the increase of fines would be getting police officers to really start enforcing the law.


How else might you judge possible solutions against each other?
You could weigh the two solutions based on easiness versus effectiveness. The solution of hiring workers to clean up the beach would be harder but all together more effective because there would be no doubt that the beach would be cleaned. On the other side, increasing littering fines at the beach would be easier considering it takes little to no money or support from the community, but there could still be people who litter on the beach.



How do your parents feel about the issue? Should externalities be taken into account?
My parents believe that beach litter is unnecessary and the product of lazy beach goers. They wish that people would realize the effects of the litter on the environment and take the few extra steps to the trashcan to throw away the trash.

Litter Next to a Trashcan

THREE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

1) Hiring a beach clean up crew
2) Raising littering fines
3) Banning non recyclable items i.e. plastic bags, bottles, wrappers, etc. 




The Chosen Solution
Solution number 1 would be the best overall because it has the possibility of meeting all three criteria of a low cost, not interfering with the tourists, and being popular with the public. By hiring a clean up crew in for the beach, litter would almost always be eliminated and thus attracting more tourists to the beach. This positive externality would increase business incomes and property values in the beachfront area. I would chose this solution over the other two because it is the simplest for the town. If anything, there would be a small increase of the townspeople's taxes but otherwise, there would be almost no interference. The solution of banning non disposable items would impact the beach goers an unbearable amount and the increase of fines just would not be as effective at cleaning litter than a daily clean up crew.

Why would some people be opposed to this solution?

Some people may oppose hiring workers to clean up the litter because to pay for their work, townspeople's taxes may raise.


Externalities of this Solution

Negative Externalities

Household Level: Beach cleaners would work either very early in the morning or late at night. If they made a lot of noise, this could affect the people in beachfront apartments and condos by keeping them awake/waking them up early.

Business Level: Beach cleaners may dispose of the waste they pick up into trash barrels outside of businesses, causing them to look messy and thus not attracting beach goers during the busy beach day.

Government: The government could have a free-rider problem with this solution because all of the beach goers from out of state do not have to pay the heightened taxes for the labor of the beach cleaners.

Rest of the World: The rest of the world would be free-riders if this solution was enacted because they don't have to pay the taxes the townspeople do so the beach will be clean.

Positive Externalities:

Household Level: The cleaner beach during a resident's open house sale could allow for higher resale value because the beach is nice.

Business Level: Because the beach is cleaner, it could attract more tourists leading to more purchases from beach side businesses.

Government: Because of the possible increase of business purchases by the increased number of tourists, the government would collect more money from taxes.

 

 

 

 

What incentives do individuals, businesses, and government have to act on each possible solution?

 

Individuals would not have to go to clean the beach themselves, allowing them to use less effort and time. Businesses would want to chose this one so that the beach would undoubtedly be clean all of the time, attracting more tourists who purchase more from their stores/restaurants. The government would want to act on this solution because the taxes they receive from the businesses who receive more money from tourists would even out the amount they spend on the workers labor so it is as if they don't pay for the clean beach.