LITTERING IN HUALLAGA RIVER: HUANUCO A wise elderly guy told me, that when he was young he could swim

and fish in the river. He told me that the river was really beautiful and clean with a lot of life inside it. But what young and irresponsible people did to the river is something awful and heartless. What they are doing is something that only will hurt them. He told me we are killing the river. And I believe that is true because we are not taking care of our river. Huanuco has a beautiful river named Huallaga, that contained a lot of life into it but it has a lot of garbage into it too. Huallaga River comes from the big Maraon River and it has a length of 1138 km. It contained several kinds of fish and other kind of small animals too. But almost none of them have survived after people started with irresponsible littering in the river. A lot of people have being complaining about that problem because littering causes not only a lot of diseases but also contaminates the environment. According to many local newspapers, the main reason for people littering in the river is that sanitation workers do not pick up their garbage, this means that they do not go by their houses and do not care about their garbage. In many journalist and experts opinion this problem starts in the municipalities, experts say that the rout of sanitation workers is not well done because we can see that are a lot of streets where sanitation workers do not go; as a consequence, people throw their garbage in the river or in the streets. Experts also say that majors should care more about this issue since they do not care much about it, and it has a great effect in our lives and environment. Another reason is that many of them are poor people, and because of their lack of environmental education they litter in the river, not knowing that they are affecting their own life and their childrens life. Many of them have not finished their studies or do not have studied anything about environmental issues, and because of that they do not know that they are damaging the environment. But according to many experts that is not a good answer, it is not necessary to know much about it,

it is a matter of common sense, they say. If that is not the problem, then what it is? I have asked me the same question and I have found an interesting answer. A web page stated, people do litter in the river or in the streets because they are too lazy and because they have no sense of pride in their community. unfortunately, that phrase means a lot, and it shows how do people from Huanuco behaves. Another important point to cover is that many times municipalities do not talk or aware about the causes and effects of littering in the river. They do not care if people know at least something of environmental education. This is really important for our city, authorities must be aware what is happening to our city. They should talk about littering in the river to people. Municipalities should show what the consequences will be if they continue throwing their garbage into the river. But if all that causes that people litter in the rivers, what are the effects? In what ways does it affect us? One effect of littering is that not only one or two people litter but a lot of people do that, we are talking about hundreds of people; as a result, all that garbage pile up and there are not ten or twenty bags of garbage, but it is a giant amount of garbage, which causes the apparition of plagues such as mosquitoes, and not only that; as a consequence, it causes the apparition of illnesses. And what is worst, the mosquitoes that live there catch those illnesses and if they go to the city, they sting and infect other people. It is a big health issue because all the community is in risk to be infected with a disease. Another effect of littering in the river is that almost all the life in the river is being killed, all those fish, amphibious and microorganisms are being killed, and if we do not do anything; consequently, there will not be any kind of living being in the river. Many experts told that if we continue doing that, there will not be any kind of life in the river and it will be very expensive to recover that river. As we know, there are a lot of farmers who work next to the river. They do not live near to the city but their products are affected. Many of them make a living

selling their products here in the city, every day we go to the market their products are there. But in what ways does it affect us? Actually if we contaminate the river we would be the most affected. Farmers most of the time irrigates their plants with water from the river, previously, that was not a problem because the water from the river was really clean but now the river is contaminated and dirtied; therefore, if the river is contaminated farmers will irrigate their plants and when they are ready they will bring their products to sell here in Huanuco. We will buy those products and we will eat them, to result in a health problem. At the end the only damaged will be ourselves. To sum up, Huallaga River is a beautiful and useful river, but what people are doing is terrible. Littering in the river is obviously bad and harmful for us and our environment. If municipalities do not want to do anything is our responsibility to take care of the river. If people say that they do not know the consequences, lets teach them. If sanitation workers do not pick up our garbage, lets make a complain. But always try to keep the river clean. As huanuqueneas lets ask ourselves what the consequences will be and we have to decide to continue or stop littering. The future of our environment and our health is in our hands.