Dear Future President,

Our country has been facing a serious problem regarding pollution. Pollution in the United States happens everyday and everyone has been guilty of contributing to the problem. Although laws and fines have been set in place in attempt to control pollution, the problem still persists.

Living between the coast of the Pacific Ocean and the second biggest city in the country, Los Angeles, I have seen pollution at its worst. The public beaches of California are a clear example of how careless citizens can be towards protecting the environment. Many local beach clean up groups have been founded in order to counteract the pollution by picking up trash. The San Diego Coast Keeper, a local beach clean up group located in the San Diego area, reported picking up a total of 11,428 lbs of trash in 2014 alone. This number should be shocking. Most public beaches have posted the fine that will be charged if caught littering, but are rarely enforced. Several large popular beaches have begun putting trash cans around the beach to minimize littering. Although these trash cans at first may seem like a good idea they are hard to maintain and therefore only exist at a select number of beaches. I believe these rules and fines protecting state beaches from littering need to be more closely enforced and ways to dispose of trash need to be more readily available.

Plastic is a major contributor to our country's pollution problem. Plastic waste does not only occur in the ocean, but also occurs in the cities, national parks, and most of the country. Most harmful has been the plastic bag. The plastic bag is light, strong, and cheap to make. These factors make it the most popular among many major stores. Some states and cities such as New York City have imposed an additional charges for using the bags. Although these charges exist they are often very small and have minimal impact on whether the customer will bring their own bag. In order to fix this problem, I believe that you should strongly encourage reusable bags and raise the cost of plastic bags, or ban the bags in all.

Although prominent, garbage is not the only product polluting our country. Most recently, the number of automobiles per American household has risen. In 2014, the US census bureau reported that 91% of households in the United States have at least one car. Large number of cars account for massive amounts of carbon dioxide that our ecosystem cannot counteract. Although one may argue the number of eco-friendly cars has also increased the, production rate of electric cars is still nowhere near the production rate of gasoline powered cars. This problem needs to be addressed soon. Emissions from any gasoline powered vehicle can be proved harmful, whereas mandatory electric cars would be beneficial, and possibly save the environment.

These examples prove that pollution is a major problem in this country and a major threat to the of its citizens and their environment. Emissions, plastic, and pollution to our ocean and beaches are just a few clear examples of pollution in our country. As the president of the United States I ask that you make changes towards how we view pollution and littering in our country. Ultimately, the reforms made would not only benefit the health of today's population, but also future generations, while maintaining and protecting our environment.

Sincerely,

Kyle T.