LITTERING: I don't get it.

[whistlepig]

A friend of mine had the contract for mowing medians and parks for a city. He would sometimes subcontract some of this work out to me. In a typical 50' wide by 300' long median we would pick up a 30 gallon garbage bag of litter every 10 days. Sometimes it took longer to pick up the litter than to mow.This was factored in to the mowing cost. We are all paying to clean up others litter.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

I hope someday they find a largescale use for old tires; there are way too many scattered around the landscape or taking up space in landfills.

Tire mulch anyone??? :thumbsup:

 

[Mrfarmertrees]

I work for a Parks Department and we spend almost half our time picking up litter after people that use the parks.

I live in a rural area and before I can mow the drainage ditch have to pick up a 5 gallon bucket full of beer cans and bottles before I can even mow each week.

 

[whistlepig]

I take my old tires and pay to have them recycled. My used oil is taken to a recycle center. I take may old batteries to a recycle center. This takes a little bit of time. Others? They just throw it out on my lawn.

 

[vwnotrunning]

I have overhead many discussions where people say "I paid my taxes to pay for someone to go out and pick up the trash - so it is okay if I throw it out." It seems many are teaching their young that being concerned with trash is for others to deal with. We have always taught our children and now grandchild to take care of the outdoors. Another local problem we have is the selective enforcement of the covered trash vehicle requirements. Alot of the debris is simply from the loose trash coming out of the transportation vehicles.

 

[edlegault]

It is a lack of respect, and therefore a lack of ethics. the last couple of generations of kids have not been taught ethics (sense of right and wrong) by their parents or by the public schools. I used to teach as a roving substitute teacher in a public school district. I would see kids drop their candy bar wrappers, lunch garbage and papers from class on the ground. When I told them to pick it up they would complain to the principal that I was "mean". One day I told a principal I was done babysitting the juvenile delinquents at his school and said adios. Best decision I ever made. Now I work for a private tutoring company getting contracts from the same schools to try to teach these kids to pass the state exit exam. Oh ya, I now make 2x the money with 1/2 the hours. :thumbsup:

 

[driftwood]

Littering : Idont get it. You never will get it. (nor will I ) Some people just dont care & never will. I see yards every day full of trash with knee high grass. People throwing cans & bottles out of car windows. I could keep going but I think you get my drift. The only thing I do is my little part to clean what I can. Mabee one day it will mean something. Wally

 

[whistlepig]

It's the "Not MY Job" syndrome. I deal with it every day. There seems to be an illusion that there is some sort of "fairy" flying around taking care of all of this. There isn't. If someone throws out litter someone else will have to pick it up.

 

[rekees4300]

I just can't understand why people think that their car window is a handy trash can.

For 12 years I have walked my dogs along the same 1/4 mile stretch of rural road that averages around 1 car per 30 minutes. Nearest town is 12 miles away. Nevertheless I normally find at least 1 beer can per day and in the past have found car tires, car batteries, misc. car parts, plastic milk jugs, baby bottles, used baby diapers, beer bottles, whiskey bottles, tin cans, glass jars, full plastic trash bags, all things McDonalds, kittens, and puppies. Oh, almost forgot the growling white Pitbull with a pink ribbon around his neck...bizarre! That 1/4 mile is a box of chocolates!

 

[boggen]

it is work to pickup up along the sides of the roads. more so areas were the sides are only bushed hog / rotatory cutter a couple times a year. it is amazing how many bags of beer cans one can collect. to bad, glass bottles / beer bottles paid out good at a recycling center.

 

[newbury]

There had been one slightly bright side to littering for me. After Vermont started a deposit on cans and bottles my buddy (RIP) and I would go out on our bicycles with BIG bags just after the snow melted. In a 10 mile loop we would find probably $10 worth of cans. Bottles were heavy so we might not pick them up.

 

[tcartwri]

I can't remember which hwy it is, but on a trip to Las Vegas we became aware of this intense band of shimmering reflections on the shoulder of the hwy. It was smashed glass as far as the human arm could throw a bottle from a moving car. Pretty incredible sight.

 

[von-mil]

I can't remember which hwy it is, but on a trip to Las Vegas we became aware of this intense band of shimmering reflections on the shoulder of the hwy. It was smashed glass as far as the human arm could throw a bottle from a moving car. Pretty incredible sight.

I saw the same thing last spring while driving through the Four Corners region of Utah/Colorado. I was on Utah state hwy 162 which becomes Colorado SH 41. Practically every square inch along both sides of the road had broken glass on it. This went on for miles and miles. Incredible - and incredibly sad.

 

[Bird]

The littering seems to be a problem all over the country, and yep, it's hard, if not impossible, to understand. We have a city park with soccer, baseball, and football fields, but also a fair sized pond with fishing allowed, piers, picnic tables, etc., and then a large heavily wooded area with trails winding all around through it. The trails are for bicycles and hiking or dog walking, even horses (though I've not seen any horses there yet); just no motorized vehicles.

Of course there's a very convenient trash barrel at each pier and at each picnic location, and yet people throw their trash on the ground or leave it on the tables.

 

[Bob Ha]

I pick up all kinds of stuff on our 1/2 mile blacktop frontage road. It's a scenic route that many motorcycle groups cruise. We pick up beer cans, baby diapers, clothes, toilets and anything else you can imagine. The one that upsets me the most are farmers with their feed bags. For certain you would think they know better and appreciate their surroundings more than most. When the feed bag is empty they just throw it on the back of the flat bed hoping it will blow off. I'm certain they do this on purpose, happens too often not to be on purpose.

 

[dmccarty]

Sunday I was walking a trail along a local river taking photographs. The amount of trash is not TOO bad but it is there. Some of it is from the river flooding but most of it is from people fishing from the bank. Beer cans, smoke butts, plastic wrap from smoke packs, worm containers, dirty diapers, plastic food bags, etc. I have seen this for years around public access areas for fishing. Where I was Sunday was a good one to two miles from parking. The farther away you get from the parking area the less trash but it is still there.

Everyone on that trail is there to "enjoy" nature. How they can just toss the trash is amazing.

Years ago there was a trailer along a major road in our county. The people in the trailer would take their trash outside and just put it in the woods. The trash was in white plastic bags so it was real easy to see the trash.

Saturday I was in a local city in a bad area of town. Some people had well maintained houses and yards. Much better yards than mine. :laughing: Then there were the other houses with trash all over the place. The city does pick up the trash. All you have to do is put it in the can and they will pick it up for you.....

People are pigs, sorry Oscar.

Later,
Dan

 

[DNC]

Why must smokers litter. Look around at the next median when you're stopped. Nasty habit made worse. They must not want to smell that cap either.

 

[DNC]

Smokers are the worse. Nasty habit made worse.

 

[Bob77064]

We live on a dead end street with two other dead end streets attached to it. There are only about 20 homes and no through traffic. But I still have tp pick up cans and bottles in my yard.