Ok. You can almost understand this one. But not. The empties really ought to go right out the window as soon as they’re empty. After all, they’re evidence. Kind of like dumping the dead body. We get it, yes, but… .
98 bottles of beer now. Really?
I suppose this is why the baggies go out there too… .
Drugs. After.
Of course there’s another option – don’t drink and drive; don’t take drugs and drive. But if people were inclined to obey all of the laws there would be no need for the police. In fact one of the stand-out statistics for the County of Suffolk is our leading position in the number of people arrested for DWI under Leandra’s Law (354 since inception, followed by 185 for, you guessed it: Nassau). That’s the crime that you commit where you’re loaded and driving around with the kids in the car. Usually, it’s after an accident but there’s not always a crash before moms, dads or caregivers wind up in handcuffs for this one.
Suffolk, according to a representative from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, had a ‘team in place’ already when the law went into effect and so was ready to enforce this law immediately. Nice to hear MADD giving props to a well planned police initiative, the cops need their support.
There’s another side to that coin: It’s fair to say that Suffolk County has a DWI problem. Whether it’s the sheer number of roadways in the County, population density, some kind of suburban thing, the lack of mass transit (don’t buy that one), or a cultural tilt(s) towards the bottle as fuel for fun and entertainment, it’s a problem. A summer spent picking up empties every Sunday morning doesn’t make me optimistic about the trend line on this crime.
Beer cans and bottles, wine bottles, vodka bottles, mixed drinks, ‘shot bags’ (I’d share a link to a purveyer of these but I don’t want to promote them, think a small baggie full of booze) and lots of variations on the theme can be found lining the roads ANYWHERE you look in Suffolk. Many of these containers are conveniently ‘travel sized’,
Travel size vodka bottle. Perfect for the car.
and contained in small non-transparent plastic bags (usually black) from the convenience store. If the cops can’t see it, maybe they won’t think it’s beer! Wrong. Anyhow, we have a retail sector that caters to the ‘mobile’ alcoholic.
A lot of people who never thought they’d be arrested are going to be arrested before this worm turns, count on it. Cheers? I don’t think so.
One of the things that’s pretty much a consensus about litter is our revulsion to it. As a species, we have what I guess is a natural aversion to personal items that we or others have cast off. That’s why most people don’t litter, because we’d find it repulsive if someone else did that. Whether it’s food or drink or smoked out cigarette butts or bodily fluids, it’s gross, we don’t want it back and we don’t want to see it again. One reason why trash cans have a lid. Disease and infection risks aside, it’s just naturally repulsive. Trash: we don’t want to see it, smell it, touch it.
Chewing gum, coffee and scrap of paper towel neatly capped in a Dunkin’ Donuts cup. Someone was on the way to a meeting.
Why should anyone else want to? Think about that, litterbug.
Litter is pollution, like oil spills and powerplant smoke and fertilizers and pcb’s, just not as immediately harmful as some other forms of environmental contamination. A lot of the difference is, most of the litter comes from ordinary people, not some evil corporation. The people from Marlboro aren’t secretly dropping used products along the roadway while nobody’s looking. Neither is that pimply kid at Burger King surreptitiously dumping crowns and fry cups beside our roads. Nor is Johnson and Johnson, or Starbucks or 7-11 taking their stuff, using it and throwing it out the car window. Not them, us. We the people. Let’s break that down a bit.
The googled top result, for the word “litter”, Wikipedia brings out some interesting facts, which I’ll excerpt and condense because you can get the long version from them: most people admit to littering in the recent past, everyone wants less litter, young people are the biggest offenders and people over 50 seldom litter and tend fill the ranks of the volunteers who pick it up. Like me.
Fifty percent of litter is intentional and the rest is accidental, windblown or fallen from a vehicle with a poorly secured load. Autos are almost always a common denominator. Except for the litter that comes from blown over trash can or kids and other careless types walking down the roadway and casually dropping candy wrappers and the like, it’s all been out for a ride. Hmm. Sounds about right, no?
It begs some questions though: What percentage of litter happens at night? Wikipedia is silent on that one. I think we have to answer that one intuitively. Except for the accidental stuff and the cigarette butt tossers, which are as ubiquitous as cell phone talkers, only a few people are littering in broad daylight in traffic.
At night, people driving in their cars know they aren’t as likely to draw attention to their piggishness. At night, drivers tend to be younger, for a lot reasons including the fact that older people tend to be at work during the day and at home at night. Over 40, according to Harvard, most people start having difficulty driving at night and many avoid night driving, leaving the roadways to the younger set. It’s a formula for casual littering. Let’s call it 75% just to put a number on it. That’s being generous I think.
Shall we even bother with the question of what days are the biggest producers of litter? I’ll cut to the chase: it’s the weekends. Period. Everyone knows this. It’s my most productive walk, that Monday morning stroll with the dog. Safe bet it’s that way everywhere in the world, except maybe Singapore which is famous for having clean as a whistle streets thanks to strict laws for minor offenses. In Singapore they levy very large fines, and community service for the convicted litter bug that includes picking up litter. Thrice convicted litter bugs have to wear a sign that says what you might expect such a sign to say. Maybe they’re on to something.
Here in New York litter enforcement is somewhat less of a priority, being roughly the ninth most common criminal court summons in the City (about 19,000 a year) and carrying a $50 fine. It’s not a big priority. Maybe it should be.
Much litter starts out innocuously enough – people doing the normalist American things: Saturday at the drive through or the deli or the drug store or the coffee shop, picking up something quick: food, alcohol, condoms, smokes. It’s all packaged up and clean and neat in the beginning. It is eaten, enjoyed, used, whatever, then tidied up nice in the bag or in one of those black deli bags that they give you for the beer and its out the window:
Pretty soon, the car window air mail is mixing with all the other cast off stuff or blown by the roadside and everything is turning sour and rank and starting to look like nobody really cares.
There goes the neighborhood. Well, except if someone picks it up that is.
Litter irks me, and so that’s why I pick it up. It’s that simple. People have a choice, they can either complain about it and do nothing or they can decide to do something about it: they can pick it up. For me, it’ll be the latter. I’m not going to wait for someone else to take care of this problem.
A cursory look at what lies by the roadside will tell you that most litter comes right out of the car window: it’s a collage of convenience foods, cigarette butts, beer and soda cans, fast food packaging and the like. Change the diaper, throw it out the window. Down that cold beer, throw it out the window. Done with those chips?, out the window. Can’t have the interior of the car dirty or smelling like lunch I guess. It’s so obnoxious. So selfish. Here’s a photo from day one: isn’t this gross?
Litter Collage
Add to the intentionally-thrown variety of trash the windy-day variety: the litter from overturned trash bins and the stuff that flies off trucks. Then there are the pole signs, the political lawn signs, the discarded appliances, the furniture. Don’t forget the parts of vehicles from accidents and construction debris dumped in the dead of night, and the dreaded hypodermic needles and condoms. Left for the volunteers to pick up.
Concrete Blocks, dumped by the roadside in a local wildlife preserve: lovely
Litter is an ethnographic picture of who we are as a culture, at the point of the least denominator. Too many people are slobs. And it’s everywhere. Everywhere.
What can the government do about it? Not enough. The police, for one, have their priorities and littering isn’t among them. It’s not on the radar and likely never will be. They have bigger fish to fry. Aside from the odd incident where some contractor gets nabbed while dumping debris from a job, you can pretty much forget about the enforcement component of this issue. Littering laws, like a lot of low level rules, are self-enforcing. Few people are caught, fewer cited: Littering isn’t getting solved, not by the government.
Of course, street sweepers make the rounds at intervals and do a fair job of snagging litter, but only in the gutters. Community beautification isn’t really their purpose, keeping the storm drains from silting up is their real purpose. Public works departments dredge out the storm basins from time to time if they are diligent, but can’t be expected to prevent the casual tossing of Wendy’s bags.
So I pick it up – me, and a lot of other people who want their communities to be clean and pleasant places. How did I get involved in this? I got my start with community cleanups and eventually made the transition to do-it-yourself litter picker. It’s not much of a transition really, because once you start doing your part with the organized cleanups you pretty quickly either quit or become a zealot. Not everyone enjoys picking up soggy trash on a Saturday morning. But for some, it becomes an addiction. You despised the litter in the first place or you likely wouldn’t have gotten involved, and then you find out that you actually like doing it. So, spearing candy wrappers and bagging up empty beer cans as you’re walking the dog is an almost natural next-step. The organized cleanups are opportunities to refresh and renew the passion and the comradery.
I doubt that too many people would, however, decide to blog their litter picking efforts. You have to be a little nuts is what occurs to me – but what the heck. Guilty as charged if civic activism is a form of nuttiness. I’ve never been one to do something in half measures. If by chronicling my dog-walking litter-picking adventures I can draw some attention to the issue then I’m happy. If I can inspire people to volunteer or to begin picking up trash that would be great. If I can inform the public debate about this problem in any way, then great. At the minimum, I’m happy if I can make a difference in my neighborhood, and I do.
So in the interest of having some (maybe) compelling facts to throw out (pun intended) at dinner parties or, more likely, at meetings with other volunteers, I’m keeping track of what I collect. I have downloaded some ‘citizen scientist’ data forms from the Nature Conservancy (the same ones that we fill out during the semi-annual International Coastal Cleanup, and am filling them out after each time I venture into the streets with my litter pickup stick. They’re downloadable (http://www.oceanconservancy.org/our-work/international-coastal-cleanup/data-form.pdf) in case anyone wants to do a coastal cleanup. Maybe I’ll contact the Ocean Conservancy to see if they want my data. All of the trash that I pick and photograph and record on the data sheets will come from locations that are within walking distance of my home.
I’ve actually invested some money in this project. But not much. My tools will include a constant supply of reused grocery store bags (at least until those bags are banned by the legislature which I expect will happen soon, but more on that later), an Olympus tg-850 digital camera, a pair of old leather gloves, a wallboard square for scale and a brand new hardware store bought pickup-stick that cost me 22 bucks. It’s a nice one, a Grip’n Grab made in the United Kingdom by Ettore (http://www.ettore.com/professionals/products/grip-%E2%80%99n-grab/) I’ll be reviewing this product by the by. I got it from the local Hardware here in Islip (http://ww3.truevalue.com/isliptruevalue/Home.aspx) where you can get anything at all.
The tool of choice, a Grip’n Grab:
Every day that I pick up trash, and it won’t be every day (I mean, really), will involve data collection and a photo of the proceeds. Like this one:
Still Life: Litter
Not sexy, I know. It is trash after all.
I’ll keep a record of the names of source vendors (franchises and the like), some shame can come out of that, as well as the location cleaned and a completed data sheet. I expect to write about the various aspects of this admittedly quirky project, such as unusual items found, equipment used, a tally of those bottles and cans returns (proceeds to be donated), philosophical observations about trash and any other spinoff ideas that come to mind. It’ll be interesting, at least to me. If anyone else finds it worth reading, like I said before, great.
A Season in Litter 