It potentially is ANYWHERE!
I felt that way when I did clinicals on the Indian reservation! My roommate said it was the equivalent of going to church/(synagogue/temple/etc.) and dumping your garbage in the sanctuary.
I’m with you. Especially now when there are more bins around (at least where I live there used to be way fewer bins).
And if you’re in a car, just take the rubbish with you. There will be a bin at your destination.
At the Grand Canyon I saw a teenage boy throw a can over the viewing ledge into the canyon, into a bit where it couldn’t be collected. I wanted to shoot him then and there: as far as I’m concerned, littering a site like that is a sure sign of psychopathy.
(Actually shooting him would be too, obviously, but all I actually did was talk to the staff, who took him aside, and I have no idea if he faced any consequences).
I honestly don’t get that either. You go to the trouble of taking a bag and cleaning up the mess, and that’s good - and way better than the situation 30 or so years ago. But then why not just take the bag to the nearest bin? It’s not hard. And I’ve walked plenty of dogs.
When I was a Cub Scout my mother was my Den Mother and we took a short day trip to one of the mountain parks in Phoenix. There was a new kid whose family had just moved from New Jersey and they were not used to our strange western ways.* While we were standing around admiring the desert flora he reached into his pocket, pulled out a stick of gum, and tossed the wrapper onto the ground. Even at eight I just stood there dumbfounded and Mom said, “[Name]! Cub Scouts don’t do that!” The kid looked startled, picked up the wrapper and put it in his pants pocket.
*Mom mentioned his mother asking her one time when she was dropping him off, “[Name]'s telling me all the boys in school wear blue jeans to school and he wants to, too. Is this true?”
“Well, yeah – what else would they wear?” This was 1958 when jeans were ‘dungarees’ to some people.
I’m not sure what that analogy is supposed to mean.
This was at the Grand Canyon, and I mean at the main visitor centre you get to if you visit from Las Vegas, not in the Canyon on a trek (I said there was a viewing ledge). There were multiple signs saying not to litter, and why, and you were reminded of it as you arrived. You don’t just sort of wander up there, as a tourist.
Throwing your rubbish into the canyon from where he was required effort, not just dropping something out of your pocket, and he couldn’t have picked it up - no human could have. It wasn’t about strange Western ways, or not being in the scouts, or differences in terms for clothing - it was one of the wonders of the natural world that this boy made an effort to litter just because he wanted to.
There is no “ah, he didn’t understand the rules” thing here. He was very clearly told the rules, like we all were (and he was American), and the beauty of the scenery made almost everyone just leave everything else at the door. It’s still one of the best experiences of my life - he’s a tiny little blip in it.
He was definitely not like a kid who’d unthinkingly throw a piece of gum on the ground in somewhere beautiful. It was deliberate.
When I was at the Grand Canyon, in 1994, there was a family with a little girl who dropped her teddy bear down into the canyon, and she wanted her parents to retrieve it. I heard her mother tell her, “We’re in the most beautiful place on earth, and all you can do is cry? We’ll buy you a new teddy bear when we get to the gift shop.”
No way were her parents going off the trail; those signs, railings, etc. are there for a reason.
Bumping this thread because I just saw a guy litter while walking along a busy road. In broad (not narrow) daylight.
He was finishing a beverage out of a plastic bottle. When done, he casually tossed it on the side of the road.
I honked an angry honk to let him know he was seen. He did not respond to my honk.
Litterbugs are the epitome of the Selfish Asshole.
mmm
Just yesterday in a parking lot a passenger in a car that was leaving the restaurant tossed their iced coffee drink out the window where it splattered. The driver slammed the brakes got out and picked up the trash and walked it to a trash can and threw it out. I felt sorry for the driver because she had a prick next to her in the front seat with a bad attitude.
Boss (regularly):
“We should start tracking these incidents and compile them monthly”
or
“We should contact all the reps and get their input on this process”
or
“We should gather all this data at the end of each week and enter it in a spreadsheet”
Me (recently): “You sound like my wife when she says “We” should clean out the garage”.
mmm
Chances are, it was a kid who threw it out the window, and the mom who stopped and picked it up.
Hold on, clearly you are deflecting blame towards a child and that’s offensive! 