It really irks me to see how much litter there is along our roads, and in our woods. We are not just talking about a few paper cups here and there, in many times we are talking about people purposefully dumping garbage in our wild areas and our farm fields. Somehow tossing a paper cup out a window of your truck, seems to make it disappear, at least for some. Out of site, out of mind as they say.

My criticism of littering should not be considered a ringing endorsement of our solid waste policy, as I am quite critical of it. That foam cup you've drank your coffee from looks like trash, so toss it out the window and get rid of it. That's what we currently do with out official solid waste policies—we haul 'trash' to the curb and the state takes it far away to a landfill, or we touch a match to it—at any rate, it just disappears and it's as if the waste never existed.

Let's a take a deeper look at where litter comes from, what we should do with litter bugs, and how to prevent more liter from happening.

What is Litter and Why it is Bad

Most of us know what litter is, if we've ever have walked through the woods on public lands, or driven along a public road. Assuming that we are excluding the question of on-farm dumps, litter is primarily a question of what economists would call a 'failure of the commons'. I will explore that more later.

Litter has multiple dimensions to it. First, and foremost it is an eye sore to see the remains of our industrialized society, littering the side of our highways and in our forests. There are certain environmental problems with litter, particularly with the dumping of certain products that can leach out into the environment. Still most importantly, is the issue of morality: if it is acceptable to litter and hurt others, when should one stop and use restraint?

Sources of Litter

The littering problem is complex, and caused by many different events. Below I list what I think are a biggest causes:

1. It's Trash—Tossed Out the Window While Driving
2. Trash Poorly Tied Down or Loose in the Bed of Truck and Blowing Away
3. No Good Way To Dispose Of The Material
4. It's Easier to Toss In the Woods
5. Drunk and Careless

The first one is a question of utter disregard for the environment and our world around us. It is contempt not only for state, but also for individual property owners, who work hard to maintain their land. Not only does it look ugly, but over time, such debris most likely effects the edge of farm fields and hurts the value of property. In some ways, it is a tragedy of the commons, with the commons being the area where the public goes, and is able to do whatever it wants without state regulations.

The second one is carelessness or sometimes innocent mistakes. Around here, many people haul their trash to the town transfer station in the back of their trucks, as an alternative to burning it. But they don't always tie it down very well, and when it falls out, there usually is not much of an incentive to pick it up. Maybe some individual eventually will clean up your trash (like the Adopt-A-Highway Program, or maybe not, and it will either break down or last until another person is irked enough by it to remove it. Similarly, some people think their bed of their pickup truck is little more then a dumpster, and they toss their trash in the back of it, to someday remove it—unless it blows out first. Another problem, particularly near landfills is trash trucks sometimes lose part of their loads, before getting to the dump. What is supposed to be neatly smashed down in a landfill is now part of roadside debris.

The third one is more a historical reason then anything else—but many times trash lasts a long time. This reason was particularly true before rationalized methods of disposal in sanitary landfills or through recycling. This would include junk cars in the backyard, and on-farm dumps. It seemingly ties into the fourth one—the issue of disposal costs, and the fact that it is easier to toss into the woods, and make it a problem of somebody else's. For the most part town transfer stations are free to use around here, they won't take everything, they haven't been existence for all that long, and their hours are limited. Plus, you don't get to shoot things up if you take them to the dump. This fact explains why you see so much trash in shale banks, where one can fairly safely shoot up various types of trash—I've seen everything from tires to television sets, not to mention many far less toxic things like bottles and chunks of tin.

The fifth reason is a big problem of litter, particularly with glass bottles and aluminum beer cans that are instinctively part of 'drinking-beer in the woods'. Some of them are from careless ATV'rs and snowmobilers. I won't question what they are doing drinking and riding, as that's a question for another day. Many more exist due to drinking parties, in which minors go up into the woods to get away from their parents, and go wild. I have no problem with such parties, even if they are illegal with minors consuming alcohol or people camping too close to the roads, as long as they don't become destructive or damaging. They're have been many such parties, where the people are good and they haul out their trash, clean up their mess, and don't allow people to drive until they are sober. Part of the problem with such parties, is it's almost impossible to properly dispose of beer cans and bottles in the woods, being necessarily built out of aluminum and glass. Plastic and paper bottles wouldn't work for beer, as the beer would spoil quickly. A similar rational applies to why you never place unpasteurized milk in plastic containers, unless you like spoiled milk. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then get some animals to milk yourself, and try storing their milk in a plastic container and see how fast it spoils.

None of those explanations are good upon their face. All of these things are relatively rare, most people don't dump their construction debris on public lands, or toss that cup of coffee out there window. However, if one in a thousand cars that pass a stretch of rural highway toss a cup out the window, there will be a lot of foam cups out there. To make matters worst, when you consider aluminum cans, you have to figure a significant lifespan for them. I've found countless pre-1982 Deposit Law aluminum cans in the woods, while undisturbed, only starting to succumb to nature's breaking down of the cans. Some technology is fundamentally incompatible with nature it would seem.

What To Do With Litter Bugs

The problem with the crime of littering, is it is infrequent enough, and nearly impossible to prevent. There are simply too many miles of relatively empty highway out there, and certainly not enough cops to enforce the law. Similarly, it is not considered a serious enough of a crime to warrant serious action against perpetrators—in many cases it's not even a crime, but a violation. A violation is usually little more then a fine (less then $500), although a judge most certainly could sentence one to up to 15 days in prison.

We as a society see litter as little bit more then a nuisance. To many, it is not a real problem, but just an annoying behavior, that some engage in. It is downplayed, and not seen as a serious crime aimed towards society, unlike many other actions our society has chosen to criminalize. I believe this is unfortunate, as litter lowers our communities' quality of life, it effects us all, and it perpetuates bad behavior.

I sarcastically argued during July of 2002, that maybe we need the death penalty for littering in New York. That is unlikely to happen, figuring that the death penalty is unworkable as it stands today in New York. Still the point is well taken: we need tougher anti-litter laws, and better enforcement of those laws.

Conclusions: Litter the Moral Question

Littering is more then a problem of beautification, it is a moral question. To litter is to show contempt for the world around you, and more importantly to property rights. When you litter, you are taking a narcissistic position that you are more important then everybody else, and that everybody else really doesn't matter. Maybe most litter bugs don't think at level, but that's essentially what they are saying.

The best solution to littering for all of those cases, is for people to care more. People need to think about other human beings, and their experience of the world around them, and not only themselves. One little bottle tossed out the window or even a bag of trash falling out of the bed of your truck may not seem like much, but over time it adds up, and is ugly.

We may be able to do more about littering by strengthening the penalties against it, and making the public more aware of it's downsides, but those things come at the cost of more resources for our already over-taxed criminal justice system. Even if effective anti-littering strategies are impossible, we can do a lot as an individual, such as participating in Adopt-a-Highway and encouraging our organizations we belong to join in. And most importantly—dispose of your trash properly and carefully—every bit counts!