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I routinely go out and pick up trash along some of the nearby streets in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, my setup is not nearly as impressive. It's sad to see t
by poo-yie 3y ago
I routinely go out and pick up trash along some of the nearby streets in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, my setup is not nearly as impressive. It's sad to see the amount of trash that people throw. Beer cans, drink cups, cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, beer bottles, etc. I pick up trash because I hate seeing it and the exercise is good for me.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoI'm also a trash picking up guy, got a bucket and a grabber stick I take on my dog walks. 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.
- jacquesm 3y agoSpot on, it's the whole attitude towards not caring what is right but what you can get away with. Endless frustration with that.
- snapcaster 3y agoThis was a really great comment, thanks for taking the time to post it gave me food for thought
- mc32 3y agoGreat comment. One disappointment is many people will not outgrow the borrower phase even when they have the resources to do so and become a lender. Also it’s okay if you neither borrow nor lend, it’s neutral.
- jacquesm 3y agoBetter than lender = giver.
- dfxm12 3y agothe people never grew to realize the reason not to litter is that it improves the quality of your community- it's not to avoid punishment! 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...
- droopyEyelids 3y agoI get it. Before I was injured in a car crash I didn't have the grabber stick, and it was such a frustrating, gross experience to pick up trash people left on my parkway- had to touch it with my hand and then carry it in my house to clean it. 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.
- hooverd 3y agoThere's always gloves.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 3y agoIt might be the implication, "If it bothers them so much"... 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.
- jstarfish 3y ago> I will suggest they can pick it up if it bothers them so much, let alone out of a sense civic pride [...] 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.
- fasouto 3y agoI have a small farm on the outskirts of the city where nobody lives. When I'm there I usually pick up other people's rubbish and it gets on my nerves to see that the next week it's full of shit again. Thanks for sharing your perspective, I think I'm going to look at it differently from now on.
- prmoustache 3y agoI am considering mounting a bucket and a grabber stick on my paddle surf board. The amount of plastic shit I see in the sea while paddle surfing is depressing.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoDo it! feels great to empty a bucket of trash into the trash can after picking it all up. but it also feels bad if you see more trash you could grab and can't fit it in the bucket anymore
- latchkey 3y agoDon't go to SE Asia.
- SCUSKU 3y agoAny tips on the best gear for picking up trash? Right now my setup is pretty simple, I just have a trash picker, a trash bag, and disposable gloves. I want to me able to pick up more trash per unit time, so while the samurai back baskets are an interesting idea, I'm not sure I'd want to risk putting garbage over my head/face. A lot of trash I pick up is bags of poop so :/
- toast0 3y agoI find a bucket easier to use than a trashbag, but the bucket fills faster. If you really want to do a lot of trash, you might get a rolling bin to bring with you?
- bombcar 3y agoIt also depends on how many trash cans are around. If there are a few (and you know where to get to them) a bucket can be dumped multiple times. 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.
- antihero 3y agoDeposit schemes for stuff like bottles are great, I don’t know why more places don’t do them
- 0xffff2 3y agoThey're ubiquitous in the US. All they seem to do is encourage the destitute to pick through other people's trash.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago10/50 states have them, though as two are California and New York it's slightly higher then 20% of the population.
- Broken_Hippo 3y agoThey're ubiquitous in the US 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)
- jstarfish 3y agoI haven't seen the "un-vending" machines outside of NY. 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.
- atdrummond 3y agoVermont has them as well (or at least did when I lived in Burlington a few years back).
- 3y ago
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoI saw a reference recently to "plogging" which is a combination of picking up litter and jogging. Think it was a Chinese thing, but may have been Japan. edit: looked it up, apparently originally Swedish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plogging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plogging
- jetrink 3y agoLast year I moved onto a street that had a ton of litter. I lived with it for about a month before I realized how easy it would be to walk a loop and pick it all up. For the first six weeks or so, I would fill two 20L garbage bags and by the next weekend, there would be another 40L of garbage waiting for me. Then something great happened: the amount of litter began decreasing. Soon I only needed to take one bag with me and recently I've been coming home with it only half full. Keeping the street clean has actually led to fewer people littering in the first place. It's a really great feeling to see such an improvement for so little effort and I would encourage anyone who enjoys walking outside to give it a try.
- poo-yie 3y agoThat's great! I was hoping that something similar would happen where I live. I think it has decreased, but still too much.
- cschneid 3y agoI've seen similar situations too. It seems that people see minor social transgressions like littering as a percentage of guilt. 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.
- KronisLV 3y ago> Already 20 pieces of junk on the ground, whatever, one more is 5% of the total. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory 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.
- lostlogin 3y agoYour link has criticism of the theory which is worth considering. That said, it’s hard to imagine that excess litter collection could lead to minorities getting bashed by the police.
- helsinkiandrew 3y agoDavid Sedaris, the American writer/satirist, has made a name for himself in the UK by picking up litter on the street: https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/david-sedaris-litter-picker-rubbish-waste-vehicle-pig-pen-west-sussex https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/davi...
- ihateyouall123 3y ago[dead]
- winrid 3y agoI love doing this. Mostly within a block or so. I get plenty this way - I think a lot of it blows out of nearby recycle/garbage bins...
- supertofu 3y agoThere are some local groups in LA that get together just to pick up trash. Seems like a great community activity.
- bombcar 3y agoI’ve always thought that if every American picked up one piece of trash each day, we’d remove a lot of trash very quickly and get some exercise, too.