For years here things were thrown into rivers and lakes to get rid of it. Out of Sight out of mind. It has taken years, no decades to cleanup this mess around here and it is not done. It is hard to go reverse the harm we have done because of many reasons. We know better but things are still discarded along the roads in ditches or just litter from lazy people.
While fishing in Michigan around Oscoda this year I picked up a pull tab that was in the path. It was in great shape considering they stopped using them in the early 80's. Yes I know this was made of Aluminum but it will take more time than we think to clean up the mess we have made. Let us hope the knee jerk reaction is not to severe.