Do people debate about littering?

The only debate about littering is to decide how best to kick someone’s ass who does.

I’ve heard people say they have a right to dump on their own property. I’m talking about people who owns hundreds of acres. I’ve also heard people half-jokingly say that littering gives someone a job picking up trash or sweeping parking lots; whatever the case.

I’ve had ‘debates’ with people I’ve witnessed throwing rubbish on the ground. I’ve witnessed my husband having ‘debates’ with people who do it too. What is there to debate about? Why they don’t put their rubbish in the bins provided? Why are they such slobs they think it’s okay to mess up the streets with their trash? I would like to believe that by calmly challenging such antisocial behaviour the litterers will think twice before they chuck their empty Macca’s bag out of the car window next time. I’m a bit of an optimist though.

@bkcunningham “I’ve also heard people half-jokingly say that littering gives someone a job picking up trash or sweeping parking lots; whatever the case.”

I have heard that reasoning given without joking, totally seriously as an excuse for laziness. It was years ago after a day at Brighten Beach. My companions got up to leave with their trash left on the the beach. When I tried to get them to pick up, that was what one of them (my boyfriend’s sister) said. That’s what they pay other people to do. I picked up all the trash and made sure it all got thrown in the trash bin. Damn, I am such a good Girl Scout, aren’t I?

BTW, there was no debating. Just set an example even if it doesn’t change their minds.

I’m not sure if ‘pick your rubbish up you slob’ really counts as a debate @RealEyesRealizeRealLies but it pisses me off when I see people throw rubbish on the floor when there are perfectly good bins around.

Yes, you are a good Girl Scout. We need more like you, @Earthgirl. My dad is 93. So consider his generation of stewardship and conservation that I wish we had more of in the world. I have a memory of him telling me (perhaps one of my 7 brothers and sisters, I don’t know who, I must have been very, very young, but he told one or all of us) to imagine if everyone in the world threw down just one piece of bubble gum paper. “Can you imagine how big a pile that would make?”

That image was so real in my young mind, I grew up never being able to throw anything on the ground and being very conscious of what I throw in “the trash.” I know where it goes and what happens to it even there.

I’m proud of you for picking up after people. I do it all the time without a second thought. I hope they learn a lesson. If not, I don’t really care. I’d rather pick it up anyway.

Does anyone rmember this anti littering commercial? It was so famous!!!

In my opinion, it’s usually people apathetic to nature who think the earth is here for them, similar to some dumb teenager living with their parents: they live in their house and drain their resources without thinking about it.

Certainly is. But I have to wonder, would there be any more or less littering without that commercial ever existing?

Blackberry has some good points on who the peeps are that don’t think about littering. How am I doing it right now, that I don’t even know, or realize that I am?

Nowadays it has evolved to the idea of “carbon footprint”.

It depends what your throwing on the ground. If i was walking through a park eating an apple, I’d have no problem throwing the core on the ground. It will degrade, things will eat it, and it coukd help fertilise soil. Same with any food though really i suppose.
The worst thing in the world to litter is chewing gum. The rest of the world should take a leaf out of Japan’s book and ban it.
Or maybe just look at japan in general. It’s a very clean country.

I will get into polite debates over throwing down cigarette butts with both friends and strangers. I just point out that it counts as littering and that it ends up in the rivers and ocean, and ask them not to do it.

“If i was walking through a park eating an apple, I’d have no problem throwing the core on the ground.”

LOL, yes this is the type of neighborhood I live in. And my dog is the one who usually eats the stuff. She is also the dog who ended up almost dying from liver failure because of it. :/ She is now on a strict vegetarian diet. Apples are ok, sometimes but she gets gas from them, bananas make her poop runny, meat gives her the runs bigtime, pumpkin is awesome, carrots are ok, sweet potatoes are ok. There is a vegitarian dog food she eats that she has no problems with. But I have to fight her from the litter otherwise she has an outbreak because her liver can not process stuff and if it goes on for too long her bilirubin goes wacky.

For the most part, people around here don’t debate the litter that doesn’t touch their property but they will just yell at you when your dog widdles on their property, the rest can look like a junk yard. I got yelled at the other day for putting a bag of dog crap in a big open school garbage bin…wtf, but all the garbage all over the school grounds, thats ok.

But on the other hand my other dog was constipated one day and tried to go but nothing and some lady yelled at me to “pick that up!” “Ok, lady, I’ll get on that invisible poop, right away!” So I guess if your dogs excrement is litter, than yes that is debatable in my neighborhood, but the actual garbage is not…wtf!

We have had discussion on fluther about littering. One thing that comes up over and over is throwing cigerette butts on the ground. Seems a lot of smokers are just fine doing that. Many don’t, but enough do that it is noticeable. The people who do it seem to think it is ok.

I would guess that most people who litters would try to justify that it is ok if put on the spot. And, it still shocks me how many people do litter.

I just heard some debate about it on the radio today. Not about whether it was good or bad, everyone says it is undesirable but the cause for it was being discussed. One reason mentioned was that it is ridiculously expensive to take an old television, sofa etc. to the tip (dump). So people drop if off along side of the road or in the nearest park. I personally use the axe on anything that is too big to go into the bin, break it up until it is small enough to go. I also see so many empty alcohol bottles as I run through the parks or along country roads. And schools are terrible, janitors usually keep the interior grounds clear, but the fences on perimeters are always littered with plastic soda bottles, candy wrappers and assorted school junk. Parents were appalled when just before Easter holiday began the children were asked to pick up the litter. My parents would have been appalled if I littered.

The part about cleaning up giving people jobs is true in many places here. In Darwin there are crews of workers who do nothing all day but clean up after itinerants who come to town to drink. Same is true of Alice Springs. If the litter problems in those towns were to disappear, half the council workers would have nothing to do.

I don’t know about putting people in jail for it, but that plan of action sure works in Singapore! I also think there should be deposits on all containers, plastic and glass. That wouldn’t help with the littering done by people who live off government handouts but kids might then pick up to earn a little extra spending money. Although it is usually the senior citizens you see collecting aluminium cans along the sides of the roads. But it doesn’t matter as long as someone does it.

“Street cleaners would lose their jobs” is an argument I’ve heard which I don’t have a response to.

..btw I don’t mean that I’m conviced that we should litter.