# Littering and class/culture/ethnicity **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2021, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472 "2021-04-06T08:24:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/41 "2021-04-08T20:17:12Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > In L.A., we have “big item pickup” one day a week. Just call to say you have an item for pickup and your address. I just have a problem with people when the pickup day is Monday, and they put their items on the curb on Tuesday. Even a couple of hours can kill the grass…besides being an eyesore. We have a similar system in our town. By ordinance the material can’t be put out earlier than noon the previous day. But there is zero enforcement of that. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/42 "2021-04-08T20:25:16Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > And people who ride horses never collect the poop. Ever think about the logistics of cleaning up your horse’s poop on a trail? Get down, tie up your horse to a safe, solid vertical object which should be right at hand, get out your shovel (which you are carrying over your shoulder, doesn’t everyone ride that way?), shovel poop into your garbage bag (tied to your shovel, no doubt), tie filled bag to your saddle, untie horse, mount up, shoulder that shovel, and continue merrily on your way. Horses shit digested grass, it is pretty inoffensive compared to dog or cat shit. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/43 "2021-04-08T20:59:56Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > We have a similar system in our town. By ordinance the material can’t be put out earlier than noon the previous day. But there is zero enforcement of that. We probably have the same ordinance. I don’t know, but if so it’s equally unenforced. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > Horses shit digested grass, it is pretty inoffensive compared to dog or cat shit. Horse shit is _almost_ pleasant smelling. Very grassy. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/44 "2021-04-08T22:27:42Z")
My point wasn’t that we _should_ make people clean up horse poop. It’s that the rules around what it’s ok to discard and what we have to collect are complex and dependent on a lot of factors. So we shouldn’t be surprised that those rules are not constant across times and places and people. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/45 "2021-04-08T22:57:46Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > > [@Sitnam](#): > > > > Couches or tires by the roadside I kinda get, it’s a pain to dispose of them and costs money > > In L.A., we have “big item pickup” one day a week. Just call to say you have an item for pickup and your address. I just have a problem with people when the pickup day is Monday, and they put their items on the curb on Tuesday. Even a couple of hours can kill the grass…besides being an eyesore. In Wisconsin it is once a year, in Spring. So…still get the road side ditch approach. If you buy a car battery there is a ‘core charge’ involved that finances getting rid of the old one. Why isn’t that a thing for bizarrely large and non biodegradable things like couches? When I am Dictator For Life if you buy a couch the cost is inherent and the responsibility is put on the seller. They go out of business then their assets are claimed first by an organization willing to take one their debts or the government to do the same. I work in small industry plating. It is easy to purchase dangerous chemicals and very difficult to responsibly get rid of them. That is nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/46 "2021-04-08T23:03:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > > [@Sitnam](#): > > > > Someone went through the trouble of picking up shit, putting it in a non decomposable bag, and decided not to complete the process. How messed up is it that doing _less_ would have been an improvement. > > Someone brought the bag along, fully intending _not_ to use it. Unless their dog happened to shit while someone else was watching. If they were unlucky, then they’d pick up the shit with the bag and as soon as the other person wasn’t looking, pitch it into the bushes. Sure. But a scowl from a stranger is apparently worse than remembering to bring a bag, picking up hot dog shit with it, walking with it out of eyesight, and depositing it trailside. All to ‘appear’ like a decent human being to one other stranger and thereby going out of your way to make it worse. It’s the god damn frequency that bothers me. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/47 "2021-04-08T23:14:14Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > But bagged dog shit left on the side of a trail!?!? My local park is full of them! Someone went through the trouble of picking up shit, putting it in a non decomposable bag, and decided not to complete the process. How messed up is it that doing _less_ would have been an improvement. Typically, the bag is left there by a person going into the trail and they intend to pick it up on the way out. Most of the bags you see are likely the bags which have not yet been picked up. Sometimes people forget or can’t find the bag, so some bags do get left behind. I doubt very few people actually bag up the poop and leave it there purposefully. But regardless, poop bags on the trail are unsightly regardless if they are only there for a short time or permanently. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/48 "2021-04-09T04:25:30Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > My point wasn’t that we _should_ make people clean up horse poop. The police chief of Selma, AL is [trying](https://www.rt.com/usa/337251-horse-poop-selma-alabama-ordinance/). Though the anti-ordure ordinance is more about catching the stuff before it hits the ground than cleaning it up afterward. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/49 "2021-04-09T04:54:02Z")
Horse diapers? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/50 "2021-04-09T09:08:53Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Horses shit digested grass, it is pretty inoffensive compared to dog or cat shit. Depends on [how much of it there is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894)… ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/51 "2021-04-09T10:41:56Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Depends on [how much of it there is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894)… Doesn’t everything? ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/52 "2021-04-09T15:15:22Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > The loudest comment she made about being on her own and living in the US was, “I had to clean my own toilet!” Oh, the horror. Yeah, that’s a real thing. Cleaning toilets is work for Dalits. Upper-caste Indians just don’t do it. At all. Ever. It’s actually a (very minor) issue in some offices in the US that employ a lot of upper-caste Indians (either immigrants or first-generation), because some of those office denizens won’t even flush toilets. It’s not a hygiene thing – they know that waste must be removed somehow – it’s just that it’s so ingrained that disposing of waste is what Dalits do that it either just doesn’t occur to them to do it, or they can’t bring themselves to do it. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/53 "2021-04-09T15:26:57Z")
I think there are reasonable arguments on either side here. Obviously, horse poop is less bad than carnivore poop, and more of a hassle, but I’m not totally convinced that “it’s a hassle to collect” is enough to balance out all the people who would like to hike on trails without stepping in horse poop. And there’s no obvious necessarily universal answer here. Some places might decide that horse poop is fine and some might decide that it’s a nuisance and should be collected. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/54 "2021-04-09T15:37:36Z")
Maybe not have to pick it up, so much as remove it from the trail. Like, just dismount and yeet it into the underbrush. (Practise with a polo mallet and you might not need to dismount!) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2021, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/55 "2021-04-09T16:24:12Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Cleaning toilets is work for Dalits. Upper-caste Indians just don’t do it. At all. Ever. In South India and other parts of Asia, a toilet is a fancy ceramic hole in the floor that the user squats over and (at best) uses a hose rather than squares of paper. Cleaning those kinds of toilets probably takes a little less work than western-style sitting bowls. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/56 "2021-04-11T02:44:01Z")
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > Cleaning toilets is work for Dalits. Upper-caste Indians just don’t do it. At all. Ever. Not at all true. Any cite for your claim ? Rich people in India do employ housekeeper who do this but majority of Indians clean their own toilets. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It’s actually a (very minor) issue in some offices in the US that employ a lot of upper-caste Indians (either immigrants or first-generation), because some of those office denizens won’t even flush toilets First I’d like to see a cite that this is a issue ; I don’t believe it is. And not flushing toilets has nothing to do with the caste system - someone is just being nasty. Having said that, toilets that gets used a lot get dirty. A toilet at a ball park and a Starbucks are different level of cleanliness and it has nothing to do with demographics of people using them. > [@Saintly\_Loser](#): > > It’s not a hygiene thing – they know that waste must be removed somehow – it’s just that it’s so ingrained that disposing of waste is what Dalits do that it either just doesn’t occur to them to do it, or they can’t bring themselves to do it. Again - total nonsense. Just made up - need to see cites for your assertion. > [@eschereal](#): > > In South India and other parts of Asia, a toilet is a fancy ceramic hole in the floor that the user squats Yeah and Howard Stern is a big fan of the Squatty potty, it was available at Costco. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/57 "2021-04-11T05:16:29Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > {…} For a couple of million years, we just tossed anything we didn’t want around any longer anywhere that it was convenient to toss it. And that was fine. Really, genuinely, perfectly fine, for two reasons and part of a third: for one, anything we tossed was biodegradable, or else it was rock. In any case, a part of the environment that that environment was entirely used to and capable of dealing with. For two, there weren’t all that many of us; so if the immediate environs got overly piled with garbage, there was room to just go slope off somewhere else for awhile until that garbage broke down and was recycled into nutrients for more fresh stuff we could eat or wear; and in the meantime there was room for the creek to clean itself before it got to the next group. And for the partial third: we didn’t usually produce a whole lot of stuff that nobody wanted. > > None of that is true any longer. {…} Not really true for the last couple of million years either. We know what humans have been eating for the last couple of million years because we’ve found their middens filled with biodegradable garbage that didn’t biodegrade. > **[Midden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden)** > > A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation. > These features provide a useful resource for archaeologists who wish to study the diets and habits of past societies. Middens with damp, anaerobic conditions can even preserve organic remains in deposits as the debr... ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/58 "2021-04-11T07:37:18Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Litter is not entirely a [matter of personal irresponsibility](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Keep_America_Beautiful). > > > [@](#): > > > > Keep America Beautiful was founded in 1953 by group of businessmen from the beverage and packaging industries who were concerned that government would make them responsible for solving the litter problem by regulating their industries. [Howard Chase](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Howard_Chase_(Late_PR_Professional,_Academic)) was an early PR consultant to KAB and in the 1970’s went on to become vice president and assistant to the chairman for public affairs of the American Can Company … In the early 1970s a new campaign was launched with the theme “People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It”. Environmentalists were not happy with the campaign theme and wanted KAB to focus on making producers responsible for packaging waste, but KAB’s industry backers refused. > > We produce an enormous amount of excess packaging shit, some of which ends up carelessly discarded and all of which requires a significant amount of energy to make, ship and dispose of. The end user is but a fraction of the problem. The end user IS the problem when rubbish is discarded alongside an otherwise pristine creek at a World Heritage listed location, with a rubbish bin atop the short staircase leading to the main path. That’s not a systemic issue, that’s just sheer fucking laziness and disregard for the environment and one’s fellow humans. It’s Australia, not some developing country without access to litter bins. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/59 "2021-04-11T13:23:15Z")
I think some people are just accustomed to living in filth.If you are brought up in an environment where people throw their trash on the ground, its normal. I spent a career investigating drug dealing, gang violence and murder in some pretty poor areas. I was always perplexed by the drug dealers with 50 pairs of expensive sneakers in their bedroom and overflowing sinks and trash cans crawling with roaches in the kitchen. If you don’t want to clean up after yourself, why not skip a pair of shoes and pay someone to come in once a week and take out the trash? Seeing people simply dropping their fast food wrappers on the sidewalk as they ate their Big Mac was commonplace. If you don’t mind your neighborhood looking like a dump, oh well. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472/60 "2021-04-11T16:05:36Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > Any cite for your claim > **[Is it sacrilege for upper castes to clean toilets?](https://www.hindustantimes.com/columns/is-it-sacrilege-for-upper-castes-to-clean-toilets/story-woNZFn9j3NIp45udeKNGsO.html)** > > The fury and indignation of upper caste organisations that members of their caste could even be invited to apply for the post of a sanitation worker is instructive about how entrenched the idea of caste remains in India. > **[A Brief History of Class and Waste in India - Longreads](https://longreads.com/2014/01/28/a-brief-history-of-class-and-waste-in-india/)** > > Here is a full chapter from The Big Necessity, Rose George’s acclaimed 2008 book exploring the world of human waste. The book will be reissued later this year with a new afterword. George’s 2013 book 90 Percent of Everything was featured... [https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/caste-prejudices-open-defecation-rural-india](https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/caste-prejudices-open-defecation-rural-india) > **[The Indian Elite Has a Toilet Problem It Doesn't Want to See](https://thewire.in/gender/the-indian-elite-has-a-toilet-problem-it-doesnt-want-to-see)** > > Concerns about hygiene are a flimsy cover for the casteism that governs middle class household attitudes towards letting domestic workers use their toilet. > **[Between the bathroom and the kitchen, there is caste](https://scroll.in/article/692513/between-the-bathroom-and-the-kitchen-there-is-caste)** > > A new survey shows untouchability still exists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/littering-and-class-culture-ethnicity/939472.md?page=4)