Stop Litter-Bugging Me

Whenever I take out the garbage, I generally find several bags of trash piled on the ground in front of the empty dumpsters. Occasionally--and I can only wish this was an exaggeration--there have been so many bags of garbage heaped around the empty dumpsters that I have not been able to get near enough to put my own trash in. The last time this happened, I proposed to make a sign reading, "Please put your black sacks in the bins," but then decided that, since the yobbos who do this (I know who they are; I keep watch while I'm on the balcony) would just ignore it anyway, my time would be better spent complaining about it, instead.

From that single paragraph, we could take this posting in a number of satisfying directions. We could point out that I am beginning to think in British English, or that I am turning into an old curmudgeon, but I don't feel up to mining either of those topics right now. Instead, I want to explore the possible reasons why the British are such slobs.

Whoa there, Clive, back away from the keyboard; I'm not talking about you. I realize the vast majority of British folks are responsible, law-abiding and satisfyingly tidy people. But it is equally plain to see that you have a large enough minority who feel they have the right to dump their trash wherever and when ever they wish to more than make up for your conscientious behavior.

I'm willing to concede that the years in this country have dimmed my memories of America, but I don't remember things being so bad back there. I was taught--in school, in Scouts and at home--to be civic minded and conscientious when it came to litter and I don't see that here. What I see here are family groups sitting on the benches outside of MacDonald's, making a lovely mess with their cast off wrappers and leftover food, and then casually taking their children by the hand and leading them past the empty litter bins while their mess lies scattered over the ground not fifteen feet away.

How do people cultivate the brass balls required to be so slovenly? It must be because you're too polite to openly challenge such boorish behavior, so you merely tsk tsk as they walk away and allow their children to grow up believing littering is socially acceptable. This is why your pavements are so spectacularly speckled with spat put chewing gum.

I also think you're a bit unimaginative and unmotivated when it comes to getting rid of your trash. Take the situation that arises at my block of flats when someone needs to get rid of a sofa:

Now, I've been through times when I had neither the means nor the money to dispose of such a large object, but I always had enough gumption to do more than toss it into the common area late at night when no one was looking. I recall one fun-filled weekend spent with a saw, scissors and a box of Hefty bags, hacking a full-size sofa into little pieces and carrying it out to the bins one sack at a time.

Being impecunious is no excuse for making your garbage someone else's problem.

On the bright side, although you don't do much to stop people from littering, you do your darnedest to clean it up. Practically every morning as I go to the bus, I see sweepers and steam cleaners scrubbing up the gum and stowing away the previous day's trash in an effort to provide the locals with fresh, tidy pavement to throw their garbage on. But at least it's clean when I walk through at 7 AM, and I consider this a good use of my Council Tax, as opposed to, say, paying a firm of consultants millions of pounds to figure out ways to save money.

I'm afraid the sweepers are fighting an uphill battle, however. As I walked home from work today, a pod of teenagers sidled out of the MacDonald's and wandered along in front of me, casually jettisoning wrappers, bags and condiment containers as they passed the neglected trash bins. A quick aside here: there are two types of teenagers in Britain: those who are respectful and civilized and will listen to reason, and those who set fire to random strangers just to see what will happen; these lads looked to be of the latter ilk. Also, there were three of them and one of me and I felt I would better enjoy going home for dinner than initiating a stay of unspecified duration in the regional A&E, so I simply tsk tsked behind their backs and quietly picked up after them.

The irony is, when our Council taxes rise because we have to hire more street sweepers, berks like them will be the first to complain about it.