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Comment by scrollaway | Hacker News Reader

> there will still be swimming bags of potato chips and cigarette cartons and beer cans and receipts, and all the other junk Parisians tend to toss in there

Time to enforce littering fines.

Seriously, as a French person living in Belgium, I am disgusted with how little of a shit people give about keeping their own city clean.

If we start enforcing littering fines a bit more in western europe, this shit will stop within a couple of years. It's 100% cultural and this is something we absolutely have to change in our culture.

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I think most people do care about keeping their city clean, at least in western Europe. The problem is that it's enough for a very small fraction of the people to ruin it for everybody else. Besides, I'm not sure if littering fines work. I'm all for it, but the risk to get caught is incredibly low. I mean, 700000 persons driving without driving licence in France, bikes get stolen like there's no tomorrow, I could go on and on... nobody cares about fines.

Western Europe has always been cleaner than both Eastern Europe, and the US, but things have been backsliding.

Things have recently changed for the worse. eg. I was in Paris, and I could see a stark contrast between now and 10 years ago. Also, parts of Italy seem to be backsliding, and then you have parts of Croatia that look better than many western parts.

Ps. In the US, NYC and SF are pretty 'dirty' overall, but then you have mid tier cities such as Miami, Boston, D.C., that are and feel very clean overall.

As much as I hate it, the real way to achieve the level of compliance you describe is through surveillance, akin to what China does or what Black Mirror depicts.

Isn't this statement disproved by places like Japan or other cities where there isn't China-tier surveillance but also littering isn't really bad?

No, because people in different places behave differently, for whatever reason.

Culture is the reason. Japanese people have a more collectivist instead of individualist society, which promotes a shared sense of ownership in society. (At least, this is what they taught me in my Japanese courses in college)

Changing culture is hard. But, some cultural shifts have been brought about by public awareness campaigns, protests, etc.

You are not going to bring about a Japanese or Scandinavian or whatever other “model” culture anywhere within a reasonable amount of time.

What makes it harder is the naysayers. Change is more likely when people think it is possible.

Singapore made that cultural shift within a generation.

Corporal punishment sure is effective at controlling a populace.

I’ve never really understood the Japanese system. Public trash cans are essentially nonexistent.

Me neither, but it works. Japanese cities, even Tokyo, are SO much cleaner than cities in Europe, it's ridiculous. (They do have public trash cans in every convenience store, by the way.)

I will be downvoted but the obvious truth is that Japan has way less Moroccans and Algerians.

Come on, dystopians.

How about some education and trusting people to act as grown-ups?

(Disclaimer - I live in Sweden)

Yeah I don't think surveillance is the way. Greatly increased fines and making police actually care about catching people would be a good start.

The only way (in any endeavour really) to truly achieve success is to get people on your side.

Make them realize they live in a beautiful city and that they are a part of it.

May take some time, maybe even decades of barely measurable results. But i believe it is the only method that works in the long run.

What do you propose? Do you think people aren't currently told that littering is bad and then simply trusted (like adults) not to do it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE

The average person is reasonable and could probably be trusted to do the right thing. It's the 50% below average whom I'm worried about. You'll probably find a Pareto-like distribution on littering, i.e. ~80% of the litter is produced by ~20% of the people.

Another example that comes to mind is graffitis. My city is full of them. It takes seconds to make one, and hours to remove it. A few dozens of people could make a lot of damage within a few months.

Which is why it is not analoguous to litter.

That is just one model.

Another model is thinking of people as a part of a herd. If noone around you dumps garbage in the river, you are less likely to do it yourself.

You just need to create that positive spiral.

I don't think this is the only way. I spent a couple of weeks in Rwanda last summer and was stunned by how clean the streets are both in Kigali and in the countryside.

I heard several years ago the picture was similar to neighboring countries (not good). This indicates that the cleanup is possible without introducing total surveillance.

I really don't think that's necessary. Just by having reasonable proximity to Public trashcans radically reduces littering.

Some level of perceived enforcement is required, but in reality it just needs to be a sign with a high fine on it. And finally some level of public funded cleanup groups and you can get pretty far with keeping spaces clean.

People are much less likely to litter in a pristine park than in a park already filled with litter.

Or you just make it cultural like Japan.

Why not assess a fine to the original manufacturer of the litter (their logo is all over it), then use the proceeds to fund ongoing cleanup. Brands that are able to court responsible end users will find an edge in the market so will be compelled to use their marketing arms to raise awareness of the issue, perhaps even going so far as to fund their own cleanup efforts or incentivized packaging return.

Mac Donald's would go bankrupt overnight, at least in France. It's crazy how much Mac Donald's garbage are all over the place.

Is that a pro or a con?

people swim in the Danube in Vienna, so it doesn't sound impossible

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