We usually ignore the negative impact of the waste left behind after outdoor events and activities. Be it a field, a riverbank, a desert or a hilltop, travellers seem to have left plastic waste at all natural locations. Littering is emerging as a major problem that is threatening the fragile ecology and aesthetic value of these places.
Last week, a visitor to Carlsbad Caverns National Park threw an open bag of Cheetos. It served as a snack for cave mold. One of the most visited places in New Mexico, the park had nearly 400,000 visitors last year.
In response, park rangers spent 20 minutes painstakingly removing mold and microorganisms from the pathways leading into the Big Room—the largest cave chamber in North America. And it was all because of a bag of Cheetos dropped by a careless visitor.
The National Park’s social media account has now shared a statement regarding the incident, highlighting that we influence the world around us in subtle ways, whether purposefully or not.
“To the owner of the snack bag, this impact was probably accidental. But it had a huge impact on the cave’s ecosystem,” the post reads.
“The processed corn, softened by the cave’s moisture, created the perfect environment for microbial life and fungi. Cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized into a makeshift food web, spreading nutrients to surrounding caves and structures. The fungus spread to nearby surfaces, the fruit died and the smell began. And the cycle continued.”
“The rangers spent twenty minutes carefully removing foreign debris and mold from the cave floor. Some members of this transitory ecosystem are cave dwellers, but many microbial life and molds are not. From a human perspective, a scattered snack bag may seem trivial, but to cave life, it can change the world. Big or small, we all make an impact wherever we go. Let us all leave the world a better place than we found it.”
This eye-opening event reminds us that our reliance on convenience comes at a huge cost to the planet, and conscious travel is more important than ever.
