What makes people litter?

Laziness? I don't know. I saw someone do this on Friday, on my way to work. A teenager who'd just come from McDonalds. He dumped the bag his food came in over a picket fence. And there was a garbage can probably 15 feet in front of him. And another one another 15 feet or less after that. It was on a very busy street.
Honestly, though, I don't think it was laziness. He just had this look like "I can do whatever I want'. It REALLY irked me.

I don't know what makes people litter, but I do know it has something to do with Arizona Iced Tea. I always see those cans laying in the street, but NEVER in a recycle bin. I haven't quite figured out if all litterers drink Arizona Iced Tea, or if all people who drink Arizona Iced Tea are (or become) litterers, but I know one of those statements is true.

However, I won't complain. As someone who recently collected cans for a living, I very much appreciated their slobbery. Those 24oz cans are worth $.10 each!

But still, littering shouldn't be tolerated. So if you see your kids drinking that stuff, smack 'em!

They're lazy. Or they're jerks. Or both.

I live on a busy street, and there's ALWAYS garbage in my yard. Grrrrrr.

They just don't care at all?

I live on a road kids take to a local high school that gets backed up by the train in the morning. You should see how much stuff I have to pick up from my yard all the time! And I have a very bad back, so I really, really don't appreciate that.

There are also a ton of beer cans, but hopefully those are the local cretins and not the kids going to school.

Kids are apparently eating way too much fast food, btw!

Ah, Smish! Psychic cross-post!!

Laziness, selfishness, ignorance. Or a combo of all three. I go nuts at people at do this.
But then I had a go at a guy who pushed his shopping trolley into the walkway and left it there, instead of putting it in the trolley bay which was the same distance from his car, so maybe I'm just a bitch.

Izz said:

Genuine question.

Someone just walked past my office window and chucked their empty cigarette packet on the grass without even a mid-stride pause.

Why did she do it? Why does anybody do it? I just don't get it.

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Disrespect, laziness and a lack of boundaries.

Drives me nuts when people do that. I share a garage with other condo residents. One threw her child's dirty diaper on the carport floor instead of walking three steps and tossing it into their garbage can. So glad to have an HOA who is not tolerant of such behavior.

Ugh. I used to live with 2 guys who turned the living room into garbage central.

Every day - 2 large packets of chips and 2 2L bottles of soft drink, along with other snacks and cans of drinks and take-out boxes/wrappers/etc. and they would clean the room once a month, if I could avoid the room all month myself. If I had to be in the room for an extended period of time, I'd clean it. Then the process would start again. Fucking disgusting slobs.

The worst was chocolate yoghurt containers leaking into the carpet of a rental place. I did NOT get my security deposit back. Dicks.

Oh, and one of them had a son (who usually lived with his mother) but every weekend there'd be the rotting smell of shitty diapers left on the bathroom floor. I'd ask him to dispose of them properly, and he'd say, "You get used to the smell," and the diapers would stay there for 2 more days even after the kid had left. There was no way in hell I was touching them.

I hate those guys so much. I didn't spend an awful lot of time with them outside of the house, but I'm sure they littered in public as well as in their own house. Pigs.

And they wouldn't even rinse out their bowls after eating porridge! They'd just leave it to sit for however long it took for me to get fed up with the kitchen and do the dishes. By that point, it was virtually impossible to get the remains of porridge off the bowls without chipping a nail (and I didn't even have long nails). Just using the sponge/cloth/whatever wouldn't do it - you had to scrape at it with your finger covered with the cloth.

Somehow the fact that they left the dishes in a state of completely disgusting bothered me more than the lounge room.

Perhaps it was because I could avoid the lounge room, but I couldn't avoid using dishes.

Hate. Them.

Sweetleaf said:

But then I had a go at a guy who pushed his shopping trolley into the walkway and left it there, instead of putting it in the trolley bay which was the same distance from his car, so maybe I'm just a bitch.

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People from Mexico, just coming across the boarder to shop at a Wal-mart in Nogales, Arizona, would constantly leave their carts out.

One would be parked next to the bay.

Would leave the cart parked BEHIND the car of the guy next to him and leave. Not the same couple of feet over and put it in the bay.

Plus, if you were stuck right next to the bay, even three cars down, good luck getting out. I've seen someone walk right up to a car AS IT WAS TRYING TO TURN ON THEIR CAR AND PULL OUT, and that guy will leave their cart behind it, instead of the 10 feet away bay. There's always a line of carts left out in the road and all surrounding the people parked next to the bay, but never actually in the bay. The bay would be empty.

I usually always parked near the back anyway, for the sake of not shopping for a spot, but I'll park WAAAAAY in the back there. Just to avoid the amount of carts and not to be blocked in.

It was always like this. Happened every time.

And for littering, I've seen full bags of food from Taco Bell and other places on the ground, being run over by cars. Full bags. And not just outside of Taco Bell, but in neighborhoods.

I'm one to pick up a piece of garbage if it's bothering me that it was left on the ground, even if I didn't leave it there.

Sometimes I wonder if it is habit, though. Some people live in homes where everything is just dropped on the floor, never picked up.

I'm not sure - Laziness? Selfishness? Lack of Training at Home?

I do know that it drives me absolutely bonkers when people litter, leave their shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot, etc. etc.

My biggest pet peeve, however is with people who use public restrooms and:

A. Tinkle on the seat or the floor
B. Don't flush the toilet
C. Don't wash their hands after using the toilet

A society which preaches that common courtesy and the Golden Rule are no longer signs of strength and character but rather of weakness and subservience.

Chances are, you heard "F*** YOU!" more often than "Thank you" in the past 24 hours.

JoeEkaitis said:

Chances are, you heard "F*** YOU!" more often than "Thank you" in the past 24 hours.

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Not in my village.

Because they feel like it?

I called my step-daughter out for littering. I was picking her up from the bus stop after school and was eating something. I asked what she did with the wrapper (because I saw her drop it on the sidewalk). She just stared at me with big eyes and I made her walk back down the street to pick it up and throw it away. It got her stared at by a lot of her friends.

To answer your question... Lazy and think they can do what they want.

What also REALLY pisses me off is people smoking in their cars and throwing their cigarette butts out the window. Plenty of cars come with ashtrays.

ether said:

What also REALLY pisses me off is people smoking in their cars and throwing their cigarette butts out the window

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QFT

we find more urine-filled Gatorade bottles in our drainage ditch (it runs along the road) than I'd like to admit.

*Ick*




so classy.

I was at a strip mall once, and a car was driving rather erratically, so I watched it. This driver would almost ... snuggle up to another car, then go off to another vehicle. When the driver found another vehicle big enough to "cover her", the driver's door opened and she tossed out a small garbage bag. Then she drove up to the first parking spot at the store and walked inside!

I was so livid I thought my head would explode. I grabbed the bag of trash and put it under her windshield wiper. I wanted SO much to confront her, but I was just too mad and I didn't trust myself not to belt her.

This was a woman in her 50s/60s who did this crap.

And why would she go to such extremes to toss a small bag of garbage? Malls have large trash cans. All she had to do was toss it in one of those. Un-frigging-believable.

I used to think that most people were basically good, decent, honest, responsible, hard-working, trustworthy individuals.

Lately,

Not so much - And I hate feeling this way, ya know?

Lavern08 said:

I used to think that most people were basically good, decent, honest, responsible, hard-working, trustworthy individuals.

Lately,

Not so much - And I hate feeling this way, ya know?

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You're not alone in feeling like that. Hence why I am practically a hermit, except for close friends, family and co-workers that I have to deal with in my job.