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 How We Can Make People Pay for Their PollutionLitterbugs should pay for their bad manners ( Story by Junko Edahiro)One summer holiday, I went to the Noto Peninsula, in Ishikawa Prefecture. I had a great time collecting seashells from the white sandy beach and playing with starfish and hermit crabs along the long shallow shore. One morning, just after 4 am, I went out to the beach, where it was still dark, and waited to watch the sunrise. The sea was pitch black, and I could only hear the waves. But when the sun began to rise, in an instant it was light.At about half past 5, a small truck arrived at the scene. Three men got out of the car and started walking on the shore. Wondering what they could be doing out there so early, I watched them closely until I realized that they were collecting all the rubbish from the beach. There were quite a few people setting off fire crackers at night and must have left behind their trash. "Who pays these three men for their early-morning waste collection job?" I wondered. Who do you think should pay them? Such payments should be made by none other than those who were enjoying the fire crackers and left their garbage behind, don't you agree? If people don't clean up after themselves and let someone else do it, they should pay others for cleaning up after them. (I don't think anyone else should have to!) Although we are grateful for volunteer groups who clean up the mess on the beach, picking up other people's trash doesn't really solve the problem. There always will be someone leaving a mess behind until we make a system that makes people pay for their litter. For example, who should pay the doctor bills for people who get asthma from car exhaust? It seems to me that car drivers should pay because they leave behind the toxic gas fumes, which is in fact another type of litter. Also, because the energy we use and the gases we release from driving our cars create carbon dioxide (CO2), the world is getting warmer. This phenomenon is called "global warming." Because of this global warming, ocean levels rise and islands in the South are sinking. Embankments have to be built to protect their villages from flooding. Who should pay for this construction? The people on these islands who don't have many cars or use much electricity aren't causing global warming. We are the ones who are using a lot of energy and making a lot of CO2, so we should be the ones to pay. It is plain to me that those who litter should clean up after themselves or otherwise pay the cost for other people to clean up their mess. Nowadays, however, it's a shame that most people get away with leaving their messes behind. So what should we do about this? Why don't we create a new tax system that makes people who use a lot of electricity pay an extra amount of money according to the amount of the CO2 they make?
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