Why are so many dental flossers discarded on the street and in parks?

A notorious one use plastic that people toss to drop their bacteria. uggggg
I protest buying them simply for that.
Now I am on that subject – Hair Bands and dog waste bags. WHY?
I live near many trails and can’t understand why people plastic their dog waste and just leave it there. Really!? Nobody is going to pick it up. It’s a mountain trail and your waste will now not degrade. Seriously? **END RANT**

I know of NO nefarious use; however, I do know of really lazy people who are too lame to look for a trash receptacle because it requires an effort on their part!!!

What I don’t understand is Who uses a flosser outdoors? Don’t you use it in the morning and/or evening when you are brushing your teeth at the bathroom sink? What is the immediate need?

@LuckyGuy I imagine that right out of a restaurant. To get food out of his/her teeth.

They used to have toothpicks in restaurants around.

Two years ago there was the occasional face mask on the streets. Especially in grocery store parking lots.

Also I’m glad that discarded cigarette butts are rare now.

Why? The same reason that we see cigarette butts scattered about. Some people have no style.

I’m recovering from gum disease and floss every time I eat anything. I have those floss/picks on hand at all times in the car, airplane, hiking, etc. I have a couple in my wallet and usually in my pocket.

For me they work better than plain dental floss. I’ve got large hands and fingers that make flossing difficult and time consuming.

Besides flossing I use both Oral-B and Sonicare toothbrushes plus a waterpick. Nevertheless I still need to have my teeth cleaned 4 times a year. I like having teeth. I’m 72 and still have a full mouth of teeth. Been working hard to keep them.

Uh. Yeah. Probably some are “drug paraphernalia.”
Used to clean/maintain crack/meth pipes…

If you’re really curious, I wager some have dark/burnt looking stuff on them… (Don’t touch anything. Obviously.)

Come to think of it, you probably shouldn’t ever walk in that place without shoes. There could easily be needles in the dirt too.
Maybe avoid the area at night…

People are slobs and when the string breaks they toss the flossers on the ground.

@LuckyGuy I used to see so many of them on the train and streets and seeing people use them when I commuted into Boston. BLECK!

It reminds me of a q that I asked here a few years ago, asking why smokers seem to think the world is their ashtray and they throw their cigarette butts on the ground in parks, parking lots, by the sides of the road, out their car windows, anywhere they see fit without thinking that maybe the world doesn’t want your disgusting cigarette butts littering everywhere. Yes, smokers may not want that in their car but the rest of the world definitely doesn’t want to have to deal with it, or should have to deal with it at all.

People are just inconsiderate disgusting entitled pigs who don’t even think about the consequences of their actions, other than “right here, right now.”

@all, no, not all people are slobs. This thread is full of overgeneralizations in the extreme.

For every dental floss seen on the ground, there are likely dozens that are properly disposed of. It’s really not possible for us to concretely know. We would have to know the number of flossers sold and then know an accurate count of those dropped as litter. We would also have to know the intention of the user. Did they drop them purposefully or on accident?

Some people are slobs. Some people are conscientious. Some people are a mixture. It’s likely that we all are a mixture.

Or.
Maybe it’s like an elephant dying ground, for toothpicks. A new discovery in toopickology!

Thank you Jake. I have three friends who are disabled enough that they have to use those. They are meticulous about disposal. If people use them in their cars, then empty the car’s trash receptacle into a can at a gas station, something as simple as a windy day can blow such lightweight objects out of an open can onto the ground where they can travel on tires, shoes, etc. Way fewer people are probably at fault than some of the posters above seem to think are careless. Stuff happens. Geez.

@jca2 Smokers don’t care much for their own health so it seems reasonable to conclude that they don’t care much for the environment.

About 10 years ago the woods on a hiking trail behind’s our housing area was set on fire by a cigarette. My neighbor and I quickly got it under control just before the fire department arrived. The fire was all around a Douglas Fir pine and was creeping up the trunk about 10 feet high. I was able to snuff it out by beating the truck firmly with a long dead branch. Then I dug a trough around the pine and doused the fire with several 5 gallons buckets of water that my neighbor brought. Firemen said we did a good job. Came within minutes of losing our homes and making the national news.

@Hawaii_Jake FYI: I used about 10 floss picks a day. Depends on the brand. Some brands are flimsy and weak an so it will take 2 or 3 to floss all my teeth. “DenTek” brand is pretty good.

I haven’t noticed this, but now I probably will.

It’s strange.

I can understand why you find it surprising that people conscientious enough to floss you would litter. Although, sometimes people floss just because the food caught between their teeth is uncomfortable.

I remember the cigarette Q’s @jca2 is referring to and it was shocking to me how many people defended the littering or admitted to not thinking there was anything wrong with it for years until they finally had an epiphany.

It’s so large I guess it’s tough to hold onto it until you find a trash can? Where you see them is it difficult to find a trash can? I hate trash cans with a flap, my trash sometimes doesn’t make it into that trash can. I either hold onto the trash or the trash might wind up on the ground near the trash can, and I feel badly about it. Finally, at some stores near me they got rid of trash cans with flaps, and I noticed a lot of McDonald’s got rid of them. Especially indoors it’s ridiculous to have them. Outdoors I can understand why it might be necessary to keep flies and bees and animals away.

There’s a difference between trash around a trash can and random trash not near a trash can. I’m not excusing litter anywhere, but trash near a trash can is either overflow or someone had trouble getting the item in the trash can.

I thought those were simply examples of the world’s smallest one string violin.

but @LuckyGuy I have never seen these on the ground. Maybe it’s a northern thing. I’m far more likely to see pairs of shoes hanging from the wires attached to power poles.

I’ve lived in this area of Central Indiana for a total of about 7 years. Flossers are not a thing here, but cigarette butts are everywhere. Some really special folks like to stand on a dock and toss them into the water. Parking lots are likewise adorned. I just assumed that all smokers these days are like that, but my mother was a heavy smoker, and she always disposed of her butts.

I suppose it’s part of the “culture” here… :(

Same reason people go camping to commune with nature, then leave an entire human waste dump behind for me to clean up. They’re lazy and stupid.

@Hawaii_Jake No, not all people are slobs. That wasn’t the point of the OP nor the others.
Yet there are plenty of people who think the earth and everywhere is their dumping grounds from PFAS’s to pollutants. We would still be using DDT if it weren’t for people who care to do the right thing or make others aware.

Regardless of the number, enough people are slobs who just don’t care or aren’t smart enough to understand. However, as a small caveat to everyone’s disdain for the epidemic of flosser littering, I’d like to point out one thing.. A proportion of litter is simply the accidental litter involved in the normal day to day activities of our waste systems. Animals tear open trash bags, garbage trucks miss, things fly away in transport, stuff gets stuck to wheels and shoes. Flossers are lightweight, have a distinctive shape, and are made of a fairly durable plastic. Thus, they are easy to accidentally drop, endure in the environment, and persist in the imagination. An appearance of this type of littering, beyond expected values, is not to be unexpected.

I wonder if any of those dental flossers have a type of “plastic” that biodegrades in a reasonable amount of time. Sounds like people who use them burn through them quickly and they don’t need a shelf life of 50 years.