Three separate places I went to at 8 in the morning. Gas station, dunkin’ donuts, and then a convenience store. All of them, trash is full. People wonder why they litter in the USA, there’s nowhere to throw away trash when you’re out. It’s unbelievable People can just go to work and choose not to do their job anymore. That people see this and they don’t have any problem with it, no interest at all to keep things neat and tidy and clean. Nope.
Also in your country they say “trash” to things they are done with. Like oh you don’t like this toy any more? It’s trash now. Oh, the bag of jerky is empty? This plastic has completed it’s cycle now and will have to be let go to circle the Atlantic
If you treat people like trash, don’t be surprised if they turn out to be garbage.
To be fair, I work at a job where I need to empty trash cans and I can honestly say I don’t get paid enough to haul y’alls shit off to the dumpster. Y’all put dumb shit in there that you shouldn’t be putting in there. It’s at the point where I take my trash home with me.
I worked at dunkin while I was in college and it didn’t matter how often you took the trash out during the summertime, it was constantly overflowing from people cleaning out their cars into it.
Not even kidding, one day I was on break outside and watched someone fill the freshly emptied can 3/4 full with all their fast food trash. As soon as the trashcan is empty people take the opportunity to clean out their cars. It’s fucking weird.
I could put trash in the bin for money.
Bro I remember in Japan there were almost no trash cans anywhere. We fuckin lucky here
All you need is a can return policy and some homeless.
They don’t even have that, they just have seperate bins for cans and bottles and people use them, and the only public places to throw away trash are in convenience stores. Which tbf exist like every 400m.
There are exceptions but generally people just keep the city clean because they want to (and social pressure).
Bottle/can deposit system can do a lot to make bins less full though. Japan just doesn’t seem to need it.
I distinctly remember a few scenarios where I heard they do. Maybe it’s not can return policy but as scrap metal. This article mentions it, too.
Perhaps one should ask why there is so much trash to be thrown away in the first place.
Bins wouldn’t always be full if there was simply less trash to put in them.
I worked for a park for a summer and it was an eye opener I’ll tell you that much. They had someone (me!) basically just emptying trash cans all damn day and it wasn’t enough! They filled up constantly.
Your point is valid (as I read it “if you have less trash there will be less trash”) but the path you used to get there is illogical (as I read it “if I have less trash, but people empty the trash at the same rate, this would not be a problem”).
OPs complaint is not that trash produced exceeds our capacity to remove it, it’s that people are not removing it. This remains true regardless of quantity.
The to-go and eating while mobile are a big chunk of litter.
A Dunks went in about a mile from a place I used to live, and where we lived was sort of a shortcut to one of the main roads from where the Dunks went in.
Our road began to be littered with Dunkin’ plastic cups, coffee cups and to-go bags. People would finish items and toss the trash out the window.
So taking things to-go and just throwing the trash down wherever is a big contributor.
I really wish that I could eat at a place like a dunkin donuts and cut the shit, basically.
I’ll order one (1) sandwich. I have a reusable cup of coffee already.
All I need is the sandwich, I do not need a paper bag, I do not need a full sheaf of napkins. I will begrudgingly accept the little sheet of wax paper that protects the sandwich.
Just ask for that, they will oblige. Source: plenty of places I do this. While normally I find this bullshit cloying, in this case you have the power to be the change you want to see.
Yup, same logic with traffic / transportation. So much money wasted on roads instead of regulations that stimulate mixed use neighborhoods, which would reduce the need for moving around and solve the issue at the root.
Have you ever lived in an urban area? If so, did you stay within the approx 1 mile radius that is a comfortable walk for most people, a significant % of the time? No stores you liked that were a neighborhood over but not in your town? No friends across the bridge? My experience has been that I can get about 25% of what I want done within walking distance, for everything else I need transit or a vehicle, and I live in a relatively walkable mixed use urban area.
There’s that series of pictures taken on a street that shows a comparison of how much space it takes to move 60 or so people in cars vs a bus vs bicycles. Obviously, the cars take up vastly more space than the other two.
Walking shouldn’t be the only other option. The influence of car and oil companies has created a car dependent dystopia in North America, where it seems like it’s either car or walk. But it’s really the same as the trash problem. If trash bins were freeways, we don’t need more of them, we need to be more efficient at moving people, essentially reducing the trash.
I’m not even talking about walking. If the average person spent 5 minutes in a car instead of 20+, the traffic would be vastly better.
Keep it in your pocket. Not really hard tbh.
Of course other humans are trashy :/You keep your not quite empty styrofoam coffee cup in you pocket? Don’t you get sticky and start to smell like overripe coffee beans?
Keep that in your hand or bring a small bag to keep it inside.
I wouldnt use a styrofoam cup anyway. Usually my thermos or drinking bottleThat’s how it’s sold (well thankfully several states have banned them so it’s often paper)
Also you’re euro right? Europeans jump through so many hoops to justify not having public toilets/trash, it’s like that continents version of American health care.
“I litter because the trash can was full”
And you’re trying to think about perceived societal problems. How about introspection?
It’s a societal problem.
https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-shibuya/article-a0002380/
People should take their trash home. It’s great for awareness.
When the convenience store only has one employee, even often during peak times, that has to run the register, stock shelves, clean, and take out the trash, in that priority order, is it any wonder that the lower priority tasks just don’t get done at all?
In Japan it’s almost impossible to find a trash can on the streets and yet people don’t litter. The problem is the culture centered around consumerism and waste.
Plenty of consumerism and waste in Japan. For trash, it’s socially acceptable to ask a store to use their trash can.
This. Throwing your trash on the ground because you can’t find a trash can amounts to childish entitlement in my eyes.
No trash cans in the forest, is OP saying they just litter all through nature when they go camping?
Funnily enough that’s where I find most of the litter in Japan, like, if you go to any non-main road that goes through a bit of forest, you will see signs threatening fines for littering, with a bunch of trash tossed in that exact area.
I have seen cans, bottles, ACs, TVs, baby car seats, bags, and general household trash. Also found a golf club once that I actually brought home because I thought that it was neat. And this is only along a single stretch of road that is only like 1km long.
So Japan isn’t some miracle society that doesn’t litter, it’s just that they do it someplace that is somewhat out of sight.
A lot of people do…
I once dropped a water bottle out of my backpack, and couldn’t find it when I retraced my hike, but I did start noticing tons of trash everywhere.
So I started keeping a trash bag in my backpack, and filling a small bag every time I hike.
I may not have found my bottle, but I’ll make sure I clean up more than I left every time I’m out.
Yeah, I fill up a trash bag every time I go hiking
Keep up the good fight! I’ve got several miles of trail cleaned behind my hood, one more major path to go!
Maybe you do this, if not, take a plastic retail bag, fold it over twice, while pressing the air out, roll it up tight and rubber band it. I always have 2-4 highly compact bags.
they just litter all through nature when they go camping
Many americans do just that, yes. :'(
It’s somewhat comforting to know that no matter how far out in the wild you go you eventually find signs of humanity.
The fact those signs are pieces of trash that someone either left or blew in on the wind is depressing.
With respect to Japan, there’s definitely a culture difference, but I don’t think it’s the consumerism/waste culture. There’s so much excess packaging in Japanese food products.
Yeah, East Asia doesn’t even try to minimise packaging. Environmentalism just isn’t the same there or something.
I might be wrong, but I assume that the food packaging is a necessity because of the extreme humidity, otherwise it will spoil very fast.
Packaging is fine, but it’s multiple layers sometimes. I feel it’s more for presentation than function.
Yeah, but do they wolf down a half pound of meat plus fried potatoes and a half gallon of sugar water four times a day in Japan?
Possibly, where are you going with this?
Smaller portions creates exponentially less waste. It also isn’t frequently greasy western fast food waste that is inconvenient to carry around for any period of time.
Like I wouldn’t mind carrying around a paper wrapper from a nice sandwich place, but fast food waste is greasy and likely to leak.
Dude, larger portions have less packaging, just because of the square-cube law. I’m actually having trouble thinking of a counterexample, even.
Larger portions need less wrapping per lb, but more overall packaging than a smaller item. You know, like how more filling requires a bigger tortilla.
You are also missing the point about the multiple, larger, individually packaged parts. Like how one container from a sit down restaurant is less overall trash than a bag of multiple wrappers, ketchup packets, and a cup from fast food.
Also, the grease.
You mean at the kfc, in Japan?
Yes, the KFC with fries in Japan. That’s totally what I meant.
No. They have rice.
Half a gallon of rice water?! :P
They would use liters, but yes. The Japanese aren’t going to just chuck out their rice water.
What about the baby?
Gone. Don’t you know the phrase don’t throw the rice water away with the baby?
I mean, that’s just one guy, but this whole idea that Asians never overeat is borderline racist. They’re not all skinny monks in saffron robes.
In fairness, I remember a time when everyone smoked in Japan and flicked cigarette butts all over the place.
There’s a litter bin near my house in a rural area that the council has obviously forgotten about. It’s been full for weeks!
You should see the amount of litter scattered around
Oh wait, it’s absolutely none, because we’re not fucking selfish savages
No fucking excuses for littering, ever. That’s a societal problem, not a bin problem
Eh, It’s a bit of both. No amount of societal pressure will solve a complete absence of waste disposal infrastructure. It’s a matter of making sure the sense of shame and/or duty is greater than whatever distance there inevitably is to a working bin.
A bit of one and mostly the other. The other being “you don’t drop shit on the ground expecting someone to clean up after you”
You know, civilisation. Society. Decency
Really boils my piss
Careful, if you’re mad that people are shit you’ll be mad forever.
People aren’t shit though.
There’s a tiny 4% of the planet that thinks everyone’s shit because they are
People generally are fucking amazing
People generally are fucking amazing
Rent is due in 2 days
This post gives me “people don’t want to work anymore” vibes.
Another way to look at it is, people don’t want to pay people to work anymore. Either the pay is such shit that the employees have no incentive to give a crap, or the employer doesn’t hire enough people to get the work done.
You don’t even know how fast these damn bins fill up. I’m a janitor at McDonald’s, and move between 5 locations (same franchise owner). The two that are in a highway rest stop kind of area that get the most customers have several cans around the parking lot. I empty them before the restaurant even opens, and all or most of them are already full by my first break. There’s only ever 1 janitor on shift at a time and we can’t be everywhere all the time. Something I have had to explain to the owner who constantly gets on my ass about the cans in the parking lot being full. “Do you want me to just spend all day making sure the garbage cans are empty or shall I do the other tasks I have as well?”
The bins themselves look pretty large with the huge stone enclosure they’re in; but the actual can inside is not even as big as a standard home kitchen bin, and the amount of trash generated by a single to-go meal from the restaurant is pretty nuts. And this is just from a fast food place. The bins placed by the city or municipality probably have even less of a chance to be serviced when the employees who do that are also in charge of cleaning the park bathrooms, mowing the grass, trimming trees and shrubs, fixing road signs, etc.
Not all heroes wear capes.
I do kinda wish my uniform had a cape tho. It would add just a little bit of fun to the job.
Only if you wanna piss off Edna.
Personally, if I see a full trash can I will keep my trash with me until I can find a place to dispose of it. I can’t imagine just throwing it on the ground regardless of the can situation.
Same. And sometimes if it’s convenient, I’ll keep my recyclables like paper, cans, and glass until I have access to a sink to clean then (glass, maybe cans) and can toss them in my recycling system at home.
Fyi, make sure your recyclables are dry before dropping them off/having them picked up
I would pull the top of all of these (without breaking it) and make all the trash fit, or, if absolutely required, carry it as you say
Don’t. You will catch a needle doing that and get hepatitis.
I’ve had plenty of times where I get home and empty my pockets of the trash I accumulated with no can nearby.
And if I try to put something in a can and it falls out, I’m taking it with me because I didn’t succeed in throwing it away.
Shrugging ans saying “well I tried” as you walk away isn’t even trying.
Japanese people do that as trash bins are very rare. It is an education issue and not the lack/full of trash binsy
You’re a rare breed
