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Why is littering so common? Someone help me understand.

What I find here is a lot of the trash comes from being blown away. Trash can or recycling bin falls over, dumps out, wind blows some of it away before person can clean it up, and that piles up. Windy garbage days there's usually trash everywhere. My place backs onto a large forest green space, so once or twice a year I grab a big garbage bag and go hike the place picking up trash...usually in spring and after big winds, to grab most of it. It has luckily decreased lately as the construction sites near by were the worst for shit blowing away, especially foam board and well, construction workers are slobs.


Also, people who throw cigarette butts out the window should be shot, fuck them dirty fucks.
 
WLDWUN said:
my take as well.

I feel bad when a paper towel blows out of my truck.
I make up for it on the other end.
a few times a year I remove trash from the forest.
about 1 ton at a time.

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With my luck. I'd pick up trash all day and then get lit up and ticketed for "Intent to dump on state land" . Because driving around with that trash is suspicious. :lmao:
 
Bebop said:
I'm soooo irritated with litter.
Last time I went to a bouncer race I started packing out shit from the ground.

Someone told me " Good on you for helping keeping the park clean". So I told him I had another trash bag if he wanted to help. All of a sudden he didn't care anymore.

Fuck litter bugs

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Since day one I always carry a trash bag (13gal/hiking, 42gal/offroad) on hiking and offroad trails.

I'm not militant about it, but I do my part.
 
CDA 455 II said:
Since day one I always carry a trash bag (13gal/hiking, 42gal/offroad) on hiking and offroad trails.

I'm not militant about it, but I do my part.
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Because I don't drink on the trail (or anymore at all) I've encouraged my friends who do to toss their cans in my rig. They used to toss them everywhere but I've gotten that paired down to a minimum. Since I don't drink my plan for ever getting harassed by the law or the owner of the private property who on paper says no booze is, " I'm picking them up when I find them and I don't know who's throwing them out."
Not a great system but I do my part:homer:

They are good guys but they treat beer cans like they are the aforementioned apple cores, mostly because they don't want the empties cluing anyone in on their state of impairment.
 
WLDWUN said:
thats what I try to tell everyone.

all you have to do, is take out one piece more that you brought.
if everyone did this, it would never be there.
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What I don't get is the carnage body/chassis parts that get left. I lost my front glass a couple years ago. Loaded it back up and all the pieces I could find. That day I also picked up a few skid plates, mirrors, and most of a grill that just got left. Have your fun guys but don't have me cut down a tire or wrap something up in a driveshaft because you can't clean up your mess:shaking:
 
IowaOffRoad said:
What I don't get is the carnage body/chassis parts that get left. I lost my front glass a couple years ago. Loaded it back up and all the pieces I could find. That day I also picked up a few skid plates, mirrors, and most of a grill that just got left. Have your fun guys but don't have me cut down a tire or wrap something up in a driveshaft because you can't clean up your mess:shaking:
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I've come across more than one busted up Jeep hardtop while out wheeling. What makes those people think it's OK to bust your junk up on the trail and then just leave a pile of broken glass and fiberglass right where it happened? Assholes!
 
My last class just let out.

And I found this. It's not like I DONT have a trashcan in my classroom.

Kids leave wrappers in my classroom all the time, even with me constantly harping on it.

It's just pure laziness.

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On the other hand, I am doing some remodeling at my shop and trying to get rid of old insulation and an old AC unit was an absolute living hell.

Had to go to 4 different recycling stations and depending on who is the person you're talking to, sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot dump it.

The system is shit.

All this is obviously open 8-5 monday to friday so if you have some sort of a scheduled job, you're fucked. I can see why some people would be temped to dump big trash like that.

Local gov should make it easily accessible and convenient for the public if they don't want people to dump in random places / nature.
 
Like all things, it's a multi-faceted issue, but in general some litter begets more litter. If I'm at a shitty gas station stop surrounded by trash and a empty chip bag blows out of my truck, I will probably only take a couple steps to try to get it, then it's gone. If I'm on the 'Con, I'll spend 5 minutes chasing that thing down.

As population density increases, litter will also increase. Accidents happen, who's gonna clean it up? At my house, or on the trail, or the playground, if I see trash on the ground, I pick it up and throw it away. On the side of the road, at a gas station, etc, I'm probably not touching the garbage if it isn't mine.

I could be wrong, but I think the intentional/careless dumping/littering has gone down per capita, but the population has gone up, so we have more litter.
 
Steve300xcw said:
Yea, but if your already "questionable" and get pulled over. It dont help a gawd damn thing:laughing:
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In the little county I grew up in an empty rolling around the bed of your truck was an open container ticket. Even if it was clearly weeks/months/years old, and you weren’t under the influence. Had a deputy give me an open container ticket for a bag of crushed cans in the bed of a truck, on my way to the recycler.. I immediately went to the sheriff’s office and he took care of it. He asked if I cared to leave the bag there, said he was gonna make the deputy haul it off in his cruiser and bring him the $1.50 check back :laughing:
 
SKULLYOTA said:
Local BLM area around me is a dumping ground too. Not just the 100’s of homeless people who live on the outskirts but you’ll see tons of very obvious truck/trailer dump sites of yard debris, drywall leftovers, construction trash, appliances, everything. IMO the dumps around here charge way too much and maybe that’s part of it. I fill up an 8ft pickup box a few times a year of my own junk and it’s always around 20$ to dump. Then add on fees for used tires, and hazmat is also a PITA to get rid of.
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I wish the fees were only $20 for a bed load.
currently its $23.15 per yard for mixed waste here. the load I posted earlier was over $100 to dispose of.
since Covid fees have gone through the roof.

I also agree that dump fees drive trash to the Forest.
refrigerators are the worst here. $21 per appliance, plus $21 for the hazardous material in them (freon)

this was the worst one done.
July 2020

before
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after


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took 39 hours of work, 503 miles of driving back and forth. everything was removed by hand, even the frame. cut it up and to the dump. 7 trailer loads.

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@45acp’s point is true about other hobbies/sports. nerd alert but I was into r/c planes for years until drones came along and all the irresponsible idiots ruined that hobby. Now you gotta have a FAA safety cert, register yer damn planes and use some dumb app to tell the .gov when and where you’ll fly and model airplane :homer:

Now with how badly the 4x4 hobby has exploded with overlanders, credit card builds and turn key rigs, all the hardcore DIY people that have been wheeling their whole lives are going to pay for it
 
CJF said:
As much as I hate regulations and taxes, I think all counties should have free (i.e., paid by the citizens) dump sites for household waste.
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Looks like Kern county, CA where I grew up is still that way:

"The Kern County Public Works Department operates seven (7) recycling & sanitary landfills, seven (7) transfer stations, and one (1) bin site. Residents are not charged a waste disposal fee for ordinary household trash."
 
Bebop said:
On the other hand, I am doing some remodeling at my shop and trying to get rid of old insulation and an old AC unit was an absolute living hell.

Had to go to 4 different recycling stations and depending on who is the person you're talking to, sometimes you can, sometimes you cannot dump it.

The system is shit.

All this is obviously open 8-5 monday to friday so if you have some sort of a scheduled job, you're fucked. I can see why some people would be temped to dump big trash like that.

Local gov should make it easily accessible and convenient for the public if they don't want people to dump in random places / nature.
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I sell old/used insulation when doing home improvement stuff lol have done it 3 times now, people pay me to take away my trash. Note though it's all been pink fiberglass batts.
 
CJF said:
As much as I hate regulations and taxes, I think all counties should have free (i.e., paid by the citizens) dump sites for household waste.
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When I lived in the city limits, we'd get a handful of coupons in the mail for the landfill in January. I forget the details, but I want to say it was one garbage load, one green waste (tree trimmings that are shredable), and a few extra bags for curbside pickup.

We paid for garbage pickup, and this was clearly part of our bill, but it seemed fine.

We moved outside the city limits, now I need to pay when I got to the dump. It's not often, so I don't think much of it. The wait at the line to get into the dump bothers me more.

This obviously doesn't fix the contractors and other commercial users that need to pay per load. I think that should be part of their business expenses, billed through to the customer, and we should fine the shit out of those that illegally dump.
 
Kurtuleas said:
My last class just let out.

And I found this. It's not like I DONT have a trashcan in my classroom.

Kids leave wrappers in my classroom all the time, even with me constantly harping on it.

It's just pure laziness.

1000016458.jpg
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I think this is the thing that irritates me the most. I do not, for the life of me, understand how this is OK. A good example of this is the movie theatres. Everyone thinks its ok to just leave their wrappers, cups, etc. all over the floors, seats, etc. Like its expected someone else will pick up after you. (And yes, I'm aware someone does, but they shouldn't have to)
 
Steve300xcw said:
Never caught shit from a cop about 2 week old beer cans in the bed of your truck have you?
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So crush them and keep a trash bag in your truck. What are you, a Neanderthal??

From what I've seen, in the east county San Diego deserts, it's mostly Mexicans and side by side crowd that litter. Quit going to Tierra Del Sol because the place was always littered with Modelo cans and bottles by Sunday. Used to walk around the rigs when people were at the ditches picking up empties and tossing them in the bed of the closest truck. We watched a group of Mexicans leave their campground a horrible mess out at Truckhaven more than once. We picked up their trash. I always pick up trash on trails because we don't need to be giving a reason for the trails to be closed.

Litterers and thieves are the same level of scumbag.
 
Tmackcj5 said:
I see it all around Austin. Side roads lined with junk people dump. Fast food trash every where. It blows my mind people are willing to be so trashy.
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Back when I had the keys to the DNR gate for our local wheeling place, it was my job as a volunteer to open and shut the gate every day on the weekends.

Quite frequently I would come across dumped trash out there. I put on gloves and dug through until I found at least 3 matching addresses in the trash. I loaded my truck up and returned it to said addresses in the middle of the night.

Strange that they used such cheap bags that broke so easily when I was throwing it out of my truck.
 
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