Now those I’ve seen!
They’re eating the rodents!
I walk around the block twice a day for various reasons - exercise, property inspection, left the wrong hammer in the other basement, Dunkin Donuts at the bottom of the hill - and carry gloves, a recycle bucket, trash bag and picker upper. One of the streets is very busy, and there’s an interesting mix of folks who don’t see me, folks who honk and shout ‘thanks’, and folks who toss more at my feet, or occasionally head. My partner and I have been doing this for almost 30 years, aren’t dead yet, and have each found a $100 bill on the sidewalk.
Wow! I want the trash pickup contract in your neighborhood!
The only thing of real value I’ve found so far is a nice pair of hemostats that one of the fisherpeople left behind.
I regularly pick up trash on my street. Last Thursday, I got a whole 13 gallon bag of trash just from two city blocks. In the past, I’ve found a cell phone, a pair of Apple Air Pods and lots of loose change. Thursday, I found 36 cents and a broken bracelet.
The village where I live has organised litter-pick Sundays about 4 times a year, but it’s not enough, so I got a couple of grabbers and bag hoops and every month or so we go around and clear the streets near us.
One thing I find quite often is the remnants of a ‘meal deal’ (ie a drink can/bottle, a sandwich wrapper and a snack wrapper, all together) in a little layby just up the road. One time, it was those three items plus a £50 note - I can only imagine someone must have had that on the floor of their vehicle and grabbed it together with the wrappers when they tossed them out of the window.
We found out after we were already here that the previous owners had been burying trash in our back yard, which is why so little would grow there. We did a lot of digging to clean that up.
We do kinda have a makeshift compost pile though, by a particular tree. Still, better than the old TV we found buried out there.
It seems the neighbors all keep their trash pretty well cleaned up. There’s a dumpster we can use less than a block away, so we don’t even leave out our trash out in cans.
I dont usually pick up trash that did not belong to me, with two exceptions:
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a noble task: when I do long distance hikes, and I come across some arsehole’s trash, I will pack it out with my trash - I will be on that trail again some day and I like nature as pristine as possible.
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an ignoble task: some fuckwit throws down a cigarette butt, or tosses a bottle from a car - I pick it up and return it to them, saying “I think you dropped this”.
The second example is trolling, but perhaps the message gets through. The first example is selfishness, but that benefit for me also benefits others, so I am OK with doing that.
There is a hypothesis that ‘litter begets litter’ - people with a tendency for littering may have a slight resistance to littering in a place that is pristine (I suppose in a place with a lot of litter, they may at some level be telling themself something like ‘well, it’s already a mess’ or ‘well, everyone else obviously does it’) - my own personal observations of the areas that I litter-pick seems to support this notion - they stay clear for a while, often weeks, then there is a sudden cascade of littering.
Where I live, it’s mostly from people driving through - tossing food wrappers and disposable vapes out of cars and vans. It is one of the most stupid and selfish behaviours I commonly encounter, I think. Wherever you are driving to, there is almost certainly a bin.
I commend those who pick up trash that’s not on their property. I just tell myself that I’m too old for that shit, but I do pick up anything that happens to land on my own property, which is rare and is usually just a plastic bottle or scrap of paper or something.
I remember some years ago before we all got these fancy covered garbage and recycling bins, when they were just open buckets, there was a strong wind storm on one particular pickup day. The wind knocked over all the recycling bins and swept much of their contents down the street. Probably most people didn’t care since the wind just removed all their recycling junk, but the guy at the end of the block, where there is a “T” intersection and a bunch of houses blocking the wind flow, wasn’t so lucky. That’s where the wind decided to drop everything it had gathered. His front and side lawns looked like a municipal dump! To his credit, the poor guy picked everything up quite promptly. I imagine probably grumbling “I’m too old for this shit”.
Which made me think of Tom Waits song $29.00
You figure nothin’ could be worse:
And you got $29.00 in an alligator purse!
I pick up beer bottles and cans I see in and along a local river my wife and I kayak a lot. Sometimes we launch from a park that has a no alcohol policy, and I’ve wondered if a park employee would give me a hard time if they saw me dumping beer bottles and cans out of my kayak when I get back. Hasn’t happened yet, though.
I’ll pick up clean garbage (like a soda can or water bottle) if I’m going for a walk and I know there’s a garbage can nearby. And if some garbage blows onto our front lawn I’ll throw it away.
Our back yard borders on an elementary school so sometimes we get balls or personal items tossed into our yard. If I find something, I just throw it back over the fence.
And this grandma of a neurodiverse child (several times over) thanks you. My beloved kidlet will toss one shoe over the playground fence and come home with one shoe. The houses are in a private development and so we parents/grandparents are loath to wander through multiple back yards looking for ‘the other shoe’. At home we have quite a collection of lonely, single shoes. It gets expensive after a while. Kids Crocs and Nikes cost as much as grown up ones.
We’re hoping that winter and snowfall slow down the shoe attrition. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and kindness.
One time the wind blew-over someone’s trash bin that had inside a pile of white foam packing peanuts. They all blew into the gutter and green belt across the street from my home, so yes, I went over there and picked-up every last one of them (probably hundreds) as they were easy to see. They were an eyesore and would have remained so for a long, long time.
Snowthx I admire your determination in cleaning up all those peanuts. Even with some kind of vacuum or sweepset, they still manage to blow around while cleaning. I like to bag mine carefully each time so they don’t get blown around.
I feel like littering has become worse in the last maybe 10 years. As kids, we were taught never to litter. Aren’t kids learning that anymore? And I do feel like it’s the teenagers more than anyone. It’s hard for me to imagine an adult throwing a McDonald’s bag out of the car window. But I’m sure it happens. On my morning walks, I see a lot of trash along the road. The things I see most are: fast food garbage, beer cans, mini Fireball bottles (I counted 6 within one mile), floss picks (I didn’t realize that many people flossed their teeth while driving AND decide to throw the picks out the window), and pop bottles. I usually pick the garbage up, if I remember to bring a bag with me.
Cars are more snugly designed than in the 1960s. Not a lot of room for a dedicated litter bag in a modern car. Now that many people do not smoke, cars don’t come with ashtrays any more either. so that tiny little litter storage spot is gone too.
As Jeebus almost said, the slobs, the selfish, and the thoughtless will always be with us. But is is harder now than it once was for the conscientious to have a place to put small items of litter generated while driving.
Most of the time I have seen people chucking trash out of cars, it has been adults. Work trucks and vans seem to be the biggest offenders.
I could be exhibiting all kinds of observation biases 
What city should I use to place the ad?
I was heading to my vehicle in a grocery store parking lot yesterday and saw a hypodermic needle on the ground. I put my groceries in my truck and went back and wearing a glove, picked up the needle. A guy sitting on a curb nearby hollered at me, told me he could get me a new needle if I needed one. I showed him a plastic bottle full of hypodermic needles and deposited the one I picked up. Told him my cat is diabetic and I use 2 every day on her. I deposited the 5 bottles of needles in a collection bin at the nearby health department office.