Unintended Consequences in Litter Control?
 

The other day I walked our little section of dirt road and picked up litter. In just 200' of roadway I picked up a wheelbarrow load of beer bottles, wine bottles, whiskey bottles, shoes, chewing tobacco tins, and water bottles. With each one my mind echoed with the remembrance of hearing someone say, "Creates jobs" as they thew trash out of their car window.

Today I saw the below article about a new fund to clean up litter in Detroit. I can't help but wonder if such a fund is the right way to go. It seems that an unintended consequence would in fact be that littering creates jobs.

I'm curious as to your thoughts? How does your city handle litter collection?

It seems to me that it would be better to reward not littering but I am at a loss as to how such a program might be structured. Maybe giving recognition to store owners and neighborhoods that police their own litter? When I was a kid my dad made me go out and "police the yard" for litter. It didn't take much of that for me to become conscious of my litter footprint.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...iness-district

I've always considered cleaning the roadside in front of my place part of life, even sweeping the gutter, thanks dad.

I don't want to make Indians cry.

Pete

Here in Howard County people voluteer to maintain a sectio of roadway. Ourselves we clear cointy land across the front our lot and also maintain the piece of land along the northwest side although it is really the property of the people behind us as it is part of their pipestem access road.

What I never understood is the requirement that people must clear the snow from the sidewalk in font of their homes. That is OK as long as you have two husky teenangers at home but forr two seniors on SSIr?

We make convicted drunk drivers do it.

Leave Zeke out of this.

LOL! I didn't think he was that old :p

Pete

Fixed that for ya Petey O ;)

You mean, TV lied to me?

http://www.e-forwards.com/wp-content...y-sad-cry.jpeg

We have that, too. I'm not sure if they are convicted drunk drivers but there is a boot camp type of arrangement for cleaning along highways. We also have Adopt-A-Highway programs.

I guess where my brain gets stuck is that it seems litter is treated as someone else's problem to solve. Litter pickup is a service that we either have to pay for or cleaning it is used as punishment. In my mind that is wrong. It seems that a better solution would be to make litter pickup a matter of pride in the community. I guess I have a soft spot for the value of common areas.

I am remided of the story of the man who threw the empty cigarette package out of his acr window on;t have it reappear on the pointed end of an elderly lady's umrella. She said 'uou dropped this' to which he replied 'That's pkay I dont want it any more. Her reply was 'neither do we'.

I suspect that if there was more pride of community and decent manners we would not have any litter to pick up. We have an upwind neighbour who does not properly bag her trash. I imagine she has improved after we finally sicced the County on her as speaking to her was fruitless. She is a university grad and assumes she knows everything.:rolleyes: