Already 20 pieces of junk on the ground, whatever, one more is 5% of the total.
Nothing there, My thing would be 100% of the junk on the ground, can't do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory
> In criminology, the broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.
The same probably applies to things like littering as well, somewhat.
I'm not trying to argue against the premise above that seeing litter makes people more likely to litter; in fact, I agree with it. Humans are monkey-see monkey-do creatures. The problem is that "monkey sees broken window, monkey does murder" is not how this works. It's a weirdly authoritarian way of thinking that suggests that criminality is not only objective, but a tidy spectrum.
That said, it’s hard to imagine that excess litter collection could lead to minorities getting bashed by the police.
I am on the verge of doing something like this along a through-way in our neighborhood. I think I could probably get a lot of buy-in from the community.
I do not find it sad but it does give me endless stuff to think about.
One thing is that when people litter (or leave dog poop on the grass) they sort of think they're "getting away with it" because no one will catch them. I realized that's a childish perspective on morality, the reason not to litter is that it improves the quality of your community- not to avoid punishment!
Another thing I think about is how we're all interconnected, and there are a million dimensions where you have to pull your weight or else someone else ends up with your extra burden. This is again especially apparent with children, who innocently leave messes or avoid chores, without realizing that what they're doing is assigning the chore to a parent.
I think of all these people littering as not pulling their weight in the dimension of litter, but that makes me think that in other areas they might be pulling extra weight, like they're in a rush because their employer doesn't pay enough for them to outsource their tasks, or they're using alcohol as a coping mechanism and need to sneak their beers in the car and can't bring the cans in the house to throw them away. And the worst case is someone who is sort of burned out on the web of interconnectedness, and not pulling their weigh in any dimension, being a burden on everyone else. That's kind of sad but it doesn't make me hate those people because I've been that guy at times in my life, and now I can at least pay back the loans I've taken in some small way.
It's very frustrating to see people comment about this stuff on a neighborhood subreddit or next door. It's a predictable cycle. Whether it's people littering or whether there's a windy trash day, people complain about trash on the sidewalk and about how it's a sign the city has gone to the dogs. I will suggest they can pick it up if it bothers them so much, let alone out of a sense civic pride, they act like I took their first born! I just don't get it...
It's actually really simple.
Imagine you have a co-worker that doesn't do their job. You complain about it and are told "well, you have time enough to complain, maybe you could take on some of his tasks." Now you're doing the job of two people and the colleague continues avoiding accountability for his incompetence.
It's bully logic. The problem isn't that I'm punching you, it's that you're being too loud in crying about it.
Burdening critics with extra work is not the solution to upstream problems. The problem is people littering, not a lack of people willing to pick it up.
The residents of your neighborhood will collectively decide what kind of neighborhood they live in by the actions they take. Whether you find this morally offensive, morally harmonious, or some complicated other combination doesn't affect the brute fact of the matter.
This means things don't improve!
I pick stuff up occasionally but I can't make up for a city of people who don't care to pick up their own trash. If I complain about it and you suggest in anyway that if I cared I should pickup after grown adults who don't care to act in a basic civilized manner I would find that very grating.
Civic pride needs to be collective.
I got the grabber stick in physical therapy though, and found a bucket in the alley and it clicked. That made cleaning stuff far more realistic.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, I think I'm going to look at it differently from now on.
but it also feels bad if you see more trash you could grab and can't fit it in the bucket anymore
Otherwise you want something bigger, preferably on wheels. Though you can do the classic where you fill bags and leave them by the road and come back later to pick them up in a vehicle.
You can even get permission from the city to drive down bike paths to pick them up, though a cart on a bike would probably work as well.
edit: looked it up, apparently originally Swedish
https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/davi...
But on the other hand, it's tragic that people are so desperate for the small sums to be had from recycling that they spend their days digging through other peoples' trash like that.
Not all of them are destitute. There are collectors who now own homes thanks to bottle and can deposits. My neighbors across the street moved in few years ago and I saw the garage open - front to back, side to side, top to bottom PACKED with bags of bottles and cans. Thousands of them. Spoke to their neighbor and they told him collecting bottles paid for most of the house. Few blocks down there's an apartment building with ground level garages and again, one of them is fully packed with bags of bottles and cans - plans in motion. This is in NYC too.
Imagine how clean the planet would be if all packaging had a deposit.
Not really. I think only 10 states have plastic bottle deposits, and I have really no clue if those are convenient for folks. I'm not from one of those states: You could take aluminum cans to get money, but it isn't convenient.
(In my current location, I can just take plastic and aluminum bottles to a grocery store to get the deposit back by feeding them into a machine. And most folks do this)
We have to take everything to the recycling center, wait in a long-ass line and they pay by weight, not item.
It's not worth my time to bring single bags nor worth the space to hoard them at home so I just trade them to the neighborhood homeless guy for expired dog food and other sundries.
And it is by item - less money for small bottles (single serve soda, for example) and more money for larger bottles (1L of soda or juice). Aluminum is similar.
In Michigan (10c deposit), grocery stores have dedicated areas for machines that receive the bottles and give you the credit back. I grew up setting cans aside for return (and having dedicated bins for folks parking for sport events, with proceeds going towards e.g. Cub Scouts and similar)
In CA (5c deposit), apparently you have to take your recyclables to a recycle center, where I think they pay based on weight. I've never bothered.
And it is true there will be people picking through public trash cans, in both situations.
On the other hand, in Belgium it's pretty normal to keep your case of empty beer bottles and return them at the grocery store when you go the next time.
There's definitely something cultural at play. I wonder if the strong capitalistic ideals in the US make it seem like a low-return effort or if it's looked down upon like going through trash. We also simply waste a lot of things in the US (food, throw-away culture, fast casual clothing, disposable electronics), so it may just be an extension of that too.
But this varies a lot state-to-state. In San Francisco, it seemed to be the poor with carts picking up cans. (And the recycling company wanted you to report people for digging through the bins.) I think the deposit was rather low there and had no idea where you can return them to.
I hate this bleeding heart crap. As I said before, If they went though it and CLEANED UP after themselves, I woulda turned a blind eye or maybe even set the cans aside in the future. These assholes made me spend my Saturday morning cleaning up trash scattered all over my front yard. You're damn right I'n not going to life a finger to help them.
you ever stop for a second and think that maybe there's a reason no one respects them?
PS: all for expanding the social safety net and creating programs to give people who want a leg up but I have no sympathy for people who Choose to be homeless and be a permanent drain on society. SF already spends more money per capita on homeless than students. enough is enough.
Even in the small town where I live upstate, some folks deposit cans for a bit of extra income. It's a useful program.