The essential plot point of Alice’s Restaurant
“Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw ours down.”
Yes. People in my Cheyenne Wyoming 'hood are good about that, but I see a place or 2 on the daily dog walk that don’t clean up after their dogs. It’s definitely a working class area. When in the Philippines I participate in organized beach cleanups. That place has a problem that must be seen to be believed.
What is it with the Fireball bottle litterers? We get our share tossed out the windows of passing cars.
I rarely need to do it because the folks in my area tend to be fairly neat, but if necessary it will happen.
We had a period of time when someone/something was knocking over trash bins. Turns out it was a very sweet and innocent looking Golden Retriever, who got busted by a neighbor’s security cam. Apparently the pup’s owners were unaware that he was escaping their yard at times and going on raids.
I don’t know. My guess is it’s teenagers. But it’s only Fireball bottles! I’ve never seen any other kind of mini liquor bottles.
I probably pick up random trash in my yard and or parking space in front of my house every other day thanks to several multi-child households and a in-home daycare on my block. More infuriating, my alley often looks like a third world country. My commute for work is a lot of forest preserve and it is depressing how many people cannot stand to have an empty fast food bag in their car and feel it is much better to throw the bag on the side of the road than to have to wait until they reach their destination and then dispose of it properly.
Whoa… I just walked in the door from a long walk. I don’t usually pick up trash, but I collected a handful. Are you spying on me?
Pick up blown-in trash in my own yard(s): yup, though it might sit a day before I remember to get it.
Pick up other people’s litter when I’m out and about: yup, I try to remember to remove and dispose of at least one piece of Somebody Else’s Trash every day. (I mean, think of what a tidiness paradise we’d have if everybody did that!)
It’s very achievable, and I figure that a lot of the litter is just accidentally dropped due to momentary inattention instead of deliberately tossed by hardened litterbugs. And I’m sure the amount of litter generated by my own moments of momentary inattention is greater than zero, anyway.
Collect a bagful or more of litter on dedicated cleanup expeditions: occasionally. Our neighborhood association organizes volunteer cleanup days a couple-few times a year. And when I go out hiking or biking or boating or bug-collecting, I try to remember to bring a bag to pick up more than just the one daily piece-o-trash.
(A remarkably high percentage of the litter collected is always plastic cigar wrappers. Why is that? I never see anybody smoking a cigar in my neighborhood, and yet there’s all this cigar packaging in the neighborhood trash. That and the tiny little liquor bottles, but I never see anybody actually consuming those, either.)
What continues to astonish me is the amount of trash I pick up inside in my workplace: specifically, in the (mostly single-user gender-neutral) restrooms. I can get how somebody might accidentally miss the trash basket when trying to throw away a paper towel (though personally I don’t have difficulty successfully accomplishing this task), but seriously, you can’t be bothered to pick it up and throw it away correctly?? Do you imagine that other people don’t mind scuffing through crumpled paper towels across the restroom floor like fallen autumn leaves, or what? Do you really not mind having to dodge other people’s litter on the restroom floor?
I don’t understand that mindset at all. I can kind of see how some thoughtless people might vaguely perceive the entire great outdoors as being “away”, in the sense of where you can throw unwanted stuff, but how is the floor of your own workplace “away”?
I do this when I’m at places like state / national parks and beaches. Litter in places set aside to be “unspoiled” really gets my goat. I don’t do it in the city though unless it’s in front of my home.
I imagine the causes of littering are various, but a lot of it, where I live, seems to be simple disregard and selfishness; wrappers, cartons and bottles thrown from vehicles where someone is eating and drinking on the go, packets dropped by pedestrians as soon as their contents are exhausted, etc.
I used to commute daily by train and on foot and peoplewatching was quite fascinating. Two particular litter-dropping behaviours stuck with me; one was a pattern, the other a single incident:
IMO the thought process is simple:
I just washed my hands. The floor is icky. We have janitors to pick up my mess. And the floor is icky.
Deplorable attitude, but a common one. I’m amazed at how many people are terrified of the floor and of other people’s trash. Like they might catch cooties from a damp paper towel or something.
It’s unthinkable for the ick-people to pick up their own mis-thrown trash. It’s far beyond unthinkable to touch anyone else’s trash. Besides, it’s beneath my exalted station in life.
Back in the day, venues after Grateful Dead shows would be spotless. Of course people would drop trash either accidentally or on purpose but after the show, a significant minority would take a couple handfuls or trash out with them and put them in cans or dumpsters.
This drives me nuts. If it’s not whole sheets of paper towels crumpled on the floor, it’s little pieces that must rip off when they pull it out of the dispenser. Do they do this at home? I just don’t get it.
At our workplace, we were getting a lot of paper towels by the restroom exit because people were terrified of getting germs from the door handle. They moved a wastebasket to the area by the door and that helped a lot. We still get random scraps of toilet paper in the stalls though (presumably because of LSL’s “ick, it fell on the floor!” theory).
That, and people using excessive amounts of TP as an ass-gasket to cover the icky toilet seat before sitting their exalted butt down, and then leaving any stray squares lie where they fall after they stand back up.
I pick up a random piece here and there and toss it.
This is the one that currently has caught my eye. Neighbors directly across the street. Couple around 40 w/ 2 kids approx 10-12. They maintain their home nicely. A little over a week ago they put up xmas lights - quite a few white lights all over several bushes, and garland/bows around one post near their front door. When doing so, they apparently left on their front lawn the white plastic spool that the lights or garland came on. t has been sitting on their front law ever since. The spool is likely 8-10" in diameter, and the top of it sits some 4-6" above the grass. It is >5" from their driveway/entrance walk. With their kids’ activities and all, these people have multiple visitors and are in and out of their home seemingly 10-20x a day.
How the FUCK can you make the effort to make your house look nice, and then not even notice this rather sizable thing just lying on your lawn for over a week?
You can also pick up trash while getting some exercise at the same time. Plogging is jogging while picking up litter. Pliking is picking up litter while hiking or biking.
Yes, frequently. We even participate in and sometimes organize, beach clean-ups.
That should be standard practice, given how many people don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. There may not be a significant risk of contracting the crud from a doorknob/handle, but blech.
Usually the wastebasket is at least close enough to the door that I can demonstrate my fantastic shooting skills with the paper towel ball I just used to get the door open.