LITTERING: I don't get it.

[jymbee]

We live in a very rural area and I often hike or bike the back roads around here. I'd wager anyone a fair amount that they couldn't walk any more than a couple hundred feet in any direction without coming across beer cans, or soda/water bottles, or food wrappers or some other litter that some slob has just tossed out the window.

Maybe not up there with toxic waste or global warning in pure environmental impact terms, but I just can't understand why people think that their car window is a handy trash can.

 

[SPYDERLK]

Hopefully you are seeing contributions predominantly from the young before they figure out why they shouldnt.:confused3:
larry

 

[ncnurseryman]

I see it too. They throw it in my yard and nursery yard. I think they just don't care and are lazy. speaks to their character or lack thereof.

 

[tractchores]

Never understood it myself.

 

[bigtiller]

Sometimes throwing stuff out of the window just won't get the job done! They have to stop, get out and open the trunk or tailgate. The half mile gravel road from me to town has a b-b-q grill, part of a kitchen cupboard, and a 13 gallon plastic garbage sack. Last fall there was a dead white tail deer laying on a blue tarp.

 

[creekbend]

That type of behavior can be regarded as disrespect, laziness, lack of manners or concern for others. Once a week, our Son and I take the golf cart and travel about 2 miles of the roads adjacent to our property, picking up litter. The trash consists mainly of beer cans, beer bottles, liquor bottles, fast food trash, soda containers-both plastic bottles and cans; etc. Due to the increase in metal prices, we rarely see old washing machines; etc anymore. Occasionally we retrieve old tires. I have seen people litter my entire life and I really don't for see any change or improvement in the near future. We just try our best to keep our locale somewhat cleaner. We live in a rural area, and the County we live in has only a population of 23,000.

 

[rsewill]

We pay $1 for pickup and disposal of a 30 gallon bag. Pretty cheap. Yet as we walk our rural road there is trash everywhere. Usually it is fast food stuff that someone is too lazy to carry from their vehicle to their trash. And lots of cigarette butts from careless slobs who would let a field burn rather than use an ash tray. Poor parenting.

 

[Buckgnarly]

My neighbors growing up used to throw trash in their OWN driveway! It was about 300' long....guess they were too lazy to carry it in the house

 

[Jstpssng]

We live in a very rural area and I often hike or bike the back roads around here. I'd wager anyone a fair amount that they couldn't walk any more than a couple hundred feet in any direction without coming across beer cans, or soda/water bottles, or food wrappers or some other litter that some slob has just tossed out the window.

Maybe not up there with toxic waste or global warning in pure environmental impact terms, but I just can't understand why people think that their car window is a handy trash can.

The smaller stuff is just laziness. The bigger stuff such as couches, tires, and refrigerators, often get dumped because people are too cheap to pay the disposal fees which many towns charge
As Creekbend said, much of thei white goods are now disappearing with the price of scrap iron being up
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.

 

[dmccarty]

People are pigs. Well maybe pigs are better than people and I apologize to Oscar and his kin.

In our county you just have to have a sticker on your vehicle to dump at a collection center. Heck, I bet now a days most of the attendants do not check for the sticker. The only reason we have a sticker is that for years we did not and people from neighboring counties who were charged to dump in their counties would dump for free in our county. The amount of garbage collected in our county dropped pretty steeply after the sticker requirement.

Places that tax to dump are very short sided since some people will just dump illegally. Some people will illegally dump regardless.

A few years ago the property next to us was subdivided and the lot lines cleared such that a tractor or truck could drive down the line. I walked down one of the intersecting lot lines and someone had dumped a bunch of garden trash on those lots. They had to drive off road a good 300-400 feet to dump the trash. At the road they had dumped two 2 ton jacks they had ruined so they just thew them out.

The people HAVE to go near the trash collection station because the only two grocery stores within 15-20 miles are located near the dump station. The illegal dumpers spent more time illegally dumping than it would have taken then to go to the legal dump. People are just flat out stupid.

On the other hand a lot of trash blows out the back of trucks and on a lake, boats. I have been walking on Corp of Engineer land over the last few weeks and there is quite a bit of trash that has floated in from the lake. I don't think people thew the trash in the water though I am sure some did. Deep in the woods I have found all sorts of trash that was carried in years ago. Some, most, of it was from before the lake was flooded.

Later,
Dan

 

[bigtiller]

My town's garbage collection fee is included in the water & sewer bill. If you pay for running water, you get a visit from the garbage man once a week.

My state also has a bottle redemption law that has helped quite a bit but there are still people that could care less about the mess they make for someone else to clean up.

 

[300UGUY]

I wish Michigan would extend our bottle deposit bill to cover all food containers. We seldom see a bottle or can on the roadside, it's worth as much as 20 cent. We see lots of McDonalds containers, water bottles, empty "energy drink" bottles.

 

[jinman]

My neighbor walks on our road and picks up trash along the way. She probably keeps the litter down to nothing just by herself. What a great neighbor she is.:thumbsup: I do know that you need to pick up trash and don't let it build up. Trash seems to attract more trash.

Our quantity of trash on our road has dropped dramatically since one family moved away and one alcoholic passed away. I don't think I ever saw this one fellow without a beer in his hand and his brand of beer cans were everywhere on our road.

 

[whistlepig]

My neighbor across the street and I each mow about 1000 feet of road frontage. When my neighbor mows he will walk across the road and pick up any trash that's on my side of the road. When I mow I do the same for him. One the few things that really p***ses me of is people throwing thrash out of their cars.

 

[newbury]

The problem is parents - they never taught the children to not litter.

About 35 years ago I was conducting a geology field recon with a team of 4, including one college junior summer hire, near Martinsburg, WV. It was warm and we had picked up dinner at a fast food joint and were on the way back to DC.

We were going along a country road at about 50mph. The darn kid, who was riding shotgun, wadded up his trash and I thought he was going to put it at his feet. Instead he looked around and tossed it out the window. I slammed on the brakes.

After he carefully scraped his face off the windshield I and the other three people started a lecture, he went out and picked everything up, and we continued to lecture him most of the way back.

Some people think the world is their trashcan, even well educated people.

 

[Pete Judd]

We have the biggest problem around hunting season. I live on a small road that turns into a logging road. During hunting season, booze bottles, beer cans and other junk gets dumped along the road. Hate finding it with the mower.

 

[Jstpssng]

Some of my coworkers throw their dead GPS batteries into the woods argueing that they're just returning them to the soil. I carry mine out, although I do leave the empty flagging rolls behind. Considering the amount of ribbon we hang through the woods I'm not sure that either of the former items really matter?)

 

[creekbend]

Rest assured that I am not posting again in this thread to obtain praise or accolades in any manner. As I stated earlier, my Son and I pick up trash on the surrounding roadway once a week. Around 5:00pm, after taking our inside dog for her twice daily run, we decided to travel the road since we were already in the golf cart. We filled up a 33 gallon lawn trash bag completely full, and had several larger items in the back floorboard. We collect the trash in smaller bags that our groceries come in from Walmart, and then deposit that trash in the larger lawn bag. It is a battle that is never really won, but doing this helps keep our area clean. People even have the audacity to toss trash out when they see that you are clearing the ditches and sides of the road.

 

[CompactTractorFan]

It really is insane. People dump trash and cigarettes on our lawn all the time. We get even more trash from loose garbage blowing around on trash day.

The worst was the time I was standing on the lawn, and a car drives by, rolls down the window, and dumps out a bag of trash while I am standing there...:confused2: