Since people create litter, people can prevent litter
After my earlier February column about litter was published, I received a very nice email from a lovely lady. She said that every week in front of their home her husband picks up a large bag of trash filled with fast food wrappers, bottles, Styrofoam cups or serving containers. She also said that every two weeks they collect approximately six cubic feet of trash in about a half-mile up and down their street.
What surprised me about their challenge is that they live in a low-crime, affluent and secluded part of their county. The litter that they pick up may not be the biggest concern facing their government, but it does affect everyone’s quality of life. No one wants to live in a wasteravaged wonderland. Litter has a way of ruining the beauty of any area to the point where many people avoid going there.
In the 1970s there was an ad that we regularly saw on television of a crying Native American man canoeing down a river full of litter. An announcer is heard saying, “Some people have a deep abiding respect for the beauty of our country, some people don’t. People start pollution, people can stop it.”
In reality, the crying man wasn’t a real native American, but the message was real and it regularly aired on television. This type of ad is as applicable today as it was in the 1970s. In Georgia, littering is a crime that can cost litterbugs $1,000 or more. In addition, a judge can order them to clean up areas that are littered.
When we lived in another state, we often saw DUI offenders picking up litter along the road wearing a shirt that indicated their crime. Should convicted Georgia litterbugs be required to pick up litter while wearing shirts that indicates their disdain for properly disposing their trash?
Littering is like the criminological broken window theory that says each problem that goes unattended leads to similar problems. People are more likely to litter in areas that are already littered, and once broken windows or litter accumulates, more broken windows or litter will be found.
Today, our society defaults to disposable everything. We dispose of hypodermic needles, paper towels, plastic wrap, glass and much more. People who grow up in this type of environment tend to be litterbugs. Litter can negatively influence people’s mood and their feeling of safety. Streets that contain litter usually appear forsaken, and people who live in littered areas also feel forsaken. Some people wrongly think that only certain type of people litter. While they are usually under age 30, litterers can be any age, sex, ethnicity and they come from all walks of life. They wrongly believe that litter doesn’t hurt anyone. In reality, it affects car insurance rates, causes fires and accidents, breeds diseasecausing bacteria and it kills lots of animals.
Litter deters economic growth because it lowers real estate prices. Top commercial and retail developments tend to locate in prosperous and clean communities rather than those that are littered and poor.
Many things that are manufactured today are made of seemingly indestructible non-recyclable matter. Try opening any disposable package these days without a stick of dynamite. Is it shocking what our disposable society produces and distributes in terms of things we can litter? Trash cans are often very scarce, and sometimes they are not available at all.
Summer is just around the corner, and it’s almost time once again to frolic in bubble gum, chicken thighs and pieces of paper. We will hike around cigarette butts, food wrappers and discarded packaging of all sorts. We will play outside and watch litterbugs dispose of items along our streets. Litter is aggressively on the rise in our rivers, our public spaces and our countryside. It is in our storm drains, gutters, loading docks, recreational areas and construction sites. We see litter in all high-traffic areas like shopping centers, strip malls and convenience stores.
Litterers per capita in our population may be down today, but the number of people available to litter has risen in the past 50 years. If people are responsible for creating litter, then people can certainly stop it. If producing ads that belittle litterers hasn’t stopped litter, is it time to try something different? We can stop litter at the source, more things can be made that are recyclable. Much of our society seems apathetic when it comes to litter. Shouldn’t America show enthusiasm, empathy and eagerness? Shouldn’t littering be stopped cold?
Charlie Sewell is a retired Powder Springs police chief who lives in Cherokee County. His book “I’d Rather You Call Me Charlie:
Reminiscences Filled With Twists of Devilment, Devotion and A Little Danger Here and There” is available on Amazon. Email him at retiredchiefsewell@gmail.com.