I do not understand the mentality.

[tomf]

Seeing litter on the sides of roads offends me, I can’t understand the mentality of people who toss trash out of their cars. I drive down some really beautiful roads and to see garbage along the side is an eye sore. How can people live in scenic places and abuse them? The world is not their garbage can and if they do not want it in their car then they should not bring it into the car in the first place.

[gumbo2176]

That's one of the main gripes in my city. I can't count the times I've seen cars at red lights and the driver, or someone in the car, will roll down a window and toss trash out the window onto the street. It's like "Gee, I've finished my Happy Meal, now to get rid of the trash from my car!!"

Here's another one that gets me. I've been inside the neighborhood "Mom & Pop" corner store and people will buy a soda and some chips, ask for it to be put in a bag, walk outside the store and take the chips and soda out the bag and toss it to the ground----------absolutely pointless.


The reason you can't understand the mentality is because you have an IQ above that of a subhuman animal.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, makes me crazy too. My yard fronts on a big busy street, so almost daily we have to clean up trash from our yard that people in cars (mainly, occasionally pedestrians) have tossed in our yard. That's not only littering, it's property rights violation. Would they toss their trash in their own yard?! (I don't know, maybe they would...). The worst thing about it is that there is no grocery store, gas station, convenient mart or anything, within a couple miles of my residential neighborhood. They had to buy their trash somewhere else and bring it with them to toss in my yard.

But even crazier is when I am out in the woods, sometimes in some pretty remote areas and find beer cans that people packed in with them and left behind. You come to that spot because it is so beautiful, and then you leave it uglier for everyone else? If you can carry it in full, you can carry it out empty!

I'm sure you inspired lots of people's rants here, tom!

[Marlingardener]

In addition to being an eyesore, litter is dangerous, too. I've watched cars swerve because a newspaper or piece of cardboard is blowing across the road; the state crews that mow the verges and median are on open tractors and if they hit a bag of trash, the shards of glass and metal are like shrapnel.
When we got off the plane in Austin and started driving north to our destination on I-35 during our first trip to Texas, I honestly thought that a garbage truck had lost its load, judging from the trash along the roadway. Then I realized not even a huge garbage truck could lose a load for well over 100 miles. New arrivals to Texas comment on two things--the friendliness of the people and the amount of trash along the roads.
We are fortunate that on our country road there isn't much litter. Perhaps when you know who lives along the road, you dump your garbage in a stranger's yard. Nah, if you litter, you wouldn't be that considerate . . . .

[applestar]

I think it starts young. My kids have a friend in the neighborhood that they really like and play with. He's a polite kid and usually brings his own after school snacks, sometimes extras for my kids as well. So I can't understand it that he leaves the wrappers and empty cans, bottles, etc. in our front yard, driveway, porch, etc. when our trash can and recycle bins are kept right there at the top of the driveway....

[Bobberman]

The highway is not a dump or compost pile! It all starts in my opinion with people throwing their cigeretts buts everywhere!

[DoubleDogFarm]

Cover your load, not all littering is deliberate. Most garbage comes from the back of trucks. On our island we have been warned, if you show up at the transfer station with a uncovered load, you maybe fined.

We also have "Adopt a road" here on the island. We still have trash but it's a lot better than most places.

Eric

[webmaster]

Even worse is going to the woods or a lake and finding trash on the trails or lakeside.

I was fishing once off one of those small t-shaped lake docks and an old gent decked out in orvis style fishing clothing unpacked his fishing gear and started fishing. This guy looked like he walkred out of an Orvis fly fishing catalog. He resembled a retired doctor. During the course of fishing he soon got a birds nest in his spinning reel and instead of untangling it he snipped a couple yards of line off his pole, balled it up, and then tossed it into the water, even though there was a garbage can not more than ten steps behind him.

[gixxerific]

I throw everything out the window. It saves me money on paying for a trash service at the house.


Of course I'm kidding here before someone freaks out on this.

[PunkRotten]

That's one of the main gripes in my city. I can't count the times I've seen cars at red lights and the driver, or someone in the car, will roll down a window and toss trash out the window onto the street. It's like "Gee, I've finished my Happy Meal, now to get rid of the trash from my car!!"

Here's another one that gets me. I've been inside the neighborhood "Mom & Pop" corner store and people will buy a soda and some chips, ask for it to be put in a bag, walk outside the store and take the chips and soda out the bag and toss it to the ground----------absolutely pointless.


The reason you can't understand the mentality is because you have an IQ above that of a subhuman animal.

You should get down their license plate when you see them throw stuff out.

[PunkRotten]

But even crazier is when I am out in the woods, sometimes in some pretty remote areas and find beer cans that people packed in with them and left behind. You come to that spot because it is so beautiful, and then you leave it uglier for everyone else? If you can carry it in full, you can carry it out empty!

I'm sure you inspired lots of people's rants here, tom!

Yep, all the nature/wilderness areas around here are extremely littered. And also there is tons of graffiti on trees and rocks. The last time I was there I saw tons of trash; beer cans and bottles, baby diapers, empty chip bags, plastic supermarket bags, other random bottles and cans, various boxes and paper, and other random trash.

[lily51]

We live in a rural area, or as the people in town think of it, the garbage dump. Whole bags of trash thrown along the road, fast food containers, cans, you name it.
Lots of people think this is just "land" and don't know it actually belongs to someone.
And if they would realize that someone is really them, too, that they're trashing their own envrionment.
Where have all the hippies gone?

[tomf]

Not that long ago a sheriff came by my place; he was looking for a back road. The sheriff was hired for a dump stop program. We talked for some time and he told me stories about how people try to lie their way out but just make them self’s look guiltier. When he gets them they get a fine and if they go to court to fight it the fine is always way more. So to save $75 it cost some of them thousands.

Broken glass bottles have stared forest fires.

When I leave an area of the beach or woods I leave it cleaner than I found it, I figure it takes a few decent people to make up for some of the pigs out there.

Lilly if you find ID in the garbage bag you may be able to do some thing about it.

I have a friend who works for the parks department in the next town over and he says people will toss trash on the ground even when they are a few steps from a trashcan.

I have had fantasies of filling people’s cars with all the garbage they tossed from it.

[gixxerific]

Yes this really makes me sick. We do stream cleanups a few times a year, you wouldn't believe the stuff that ends up there. whenever we go camping we clean up "other" peoples stuff.

I could go on but it makes mad and I might say some things I shouldn't on here.

[Marlingardener]

I was told that even if you give the license number of the litterer to the police, they can't do anything about it--can only issue fines if the police actually see the littering themselves.
We led nature walks at a local nature preserve (nice trails, waterfall, lots of flora and fauna to talk about) but we learned that we needed to go an hour early and walk the path to pick up trash (and you wouldn't believe some of the stuff we picked up--I blush to think of it!). We often had children on the walks and we didn't want them to learn too much about the birds and the bees.
Wouldn't open season on litterers be a great idea?