Littering

I'm watching an episode from season 2 of Mad Men, the
best show on TV. The fam is having a picnic at a roadside
park and they get up and leave all their rubbish right
there on the ground and get in the car and leave.

I was rushed back to the late 50's and into the 60's.
It was nothing to see somebody throw a bag of trash
out their car window. The sides of highways were covered
in trash. Newspapers, cans, paper bags, cigarette packs,
actual garbage, you name it. How we once tolerated
living like that is a mystery. When I was in high school
and went out drinking beer, we always threw our empty
cans out the window of the car. Streams and rivers
were clogged with everything imaginable.

Then came 1970 and the 'crying Indian' TV ad's with
Iron Eyes Cody. Who wasn't even a real Indian, he
was Italian. We changed. We started caring. When
is the last time you saw a litter strewn road, or a clogged
river. If you weren't there, you can't even imagine how
bad it was. I'm embarrassed by it, what in hell were
we thinking.

One day, people will look back on this time and ask "How the hell did they use that much oil?", and "How the hell were cigarettes ever legal?".

"Every litterbit hurts" is still in my head.

But then, "Brylcream, a little dab will do you" is too.

I also remember when they specially invented "litter bags" for cars.

Quote: zippyboy

One day, people will look back on this time and ask "How the hell did they use that much oil?"

That, or "Why didn't they launch Operation Venezuelan Freedom sooner?"

Quote: zippyboy

and "How the hell were [cigarettes] ever legal?".

This will probably be said about a lot of things.

Quote: EvenBob

When is the last time you saw
a litter strewn road, or a clogged river.

All the time.

But I notice something else that I didn't used to see (or at least didn't used to notice):

Guys in orange jump suits cleaning it up.

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Quote: DJTeddyBear

All the time.

But I notice something else that I didn't used to see (or at least didn't used to notice):

Guys in orange jump suits cleaning it up.

So you saw me? I hated every embarrassing minute of it.

I see people throw crap out their window multiple times a day.

My buddy's wife came to the US in about 1980 at about age 12. I once told her how until the mid 1970s it was socially acceptable to throw trash out the car window. I never before or since saw her with such a stone dead expression. She was just amazed.

What I do not get is why it is still accepted to throw cigarette buts out the window. Surely some town needing revenue could put out some plain brown wrapper cars with video to catch the act and issue the $250 fine the signs promise. Once word about it got out the practice would end. I mean it is trash you don't want in your car so why do you think it is ok to throw it out the window?

Littering gave birth to recycling. MI passes the bottle
deposit law decades ago and it got rid of cans and
bottles by the roadside overnight.

It was a different era. We had the township dump
about 2 miles from our house. People just brought
all their garbage and trash and dumped it in the
5 acres that was nothing but stinking piles of
everything under the sun. We would ride our bikes
there and find all kinds of goodies.

Its been gone for 45 years and there are a bunch
of tract houses there now. I always wonder if
they know that was the site of the dump for
over 50 years.

Isn't that also what these "Adopt a Highway" programs are all about? Or is this just a NY thing? I always see signs about "the next 2 miles adopted by so-and-so or group such and such". Always wondered exactly what that meant. I assumed it was a garbage thing since it's not uncommon to see a group of people (sans orange jumpsuits) walking the roads with bags collecting trash.

Some of the old culture is still left in the sticks. The dirt road I just moved from had its share of TVs and old car batteries in the ditches at the edge of the woods. Once while out 4wheeling, I came upon a dirt road that ended in a gulch. It was absolutely filled with TVs, car frames, refrigerators, stoves, bags of refuse, tires, rims, just everything you could think of. I like the new days better than that mess.

I remember my grandpa oiling his own road way back when. All the home changed oil would be saved and come summer, it'd all be spread up and down his section of dirt road to "keep it together and keep the dust down". You'd go to jail for that nowadays.

Quote: EvenBob

It was a different era. We had the township dump
about 2 miles from our house. People just brought
all their garbage and trash and dumped it in the
5 acres that was nothing but stinking piles of
everything under the sun.

Except for the fact that I was out in hot sweaty weather gathering up sticks & branches beforehand helping my dad, I kind of enjoyed our trips to the open dump. The smell was kind of horrendus, and there were flocks of screeching gulls all over, and usually some guy on a bulldozer whose job was pushing a small pile of crap over into bigger piles of crap was hard at work.

Quote: rxwine

and there were flocks of screeching gulls all over, .

I forgot all about the birds. They were in big flocks and
would swoop down on different areas of the dump. A lot
of people in the country had their own dump. Drive the
tractor and wagon out to the back 40 throw all your crap
down a steep hill in the woods. People had been doing
it all over the world for thousands of years.

Quote: rxwine

I kind of enjoyed our trips to the open dump.

Memories =) I remember getting so excited for trips to the dump. Pulling into the big pit, tossing the bags in, watching the old pneumatic beast churn to life and smoosh all the bags...doesn't get any better for a 6 year old =D

That smell still gets me. I don't find it foul in any way, shape or form. Just one big, aromatic cloud of pure nostalgia. One whiff and I'm a kid again, riding in back of an old pick up on a hot August day. Cicadas buzzing in the trees, the tick-tack of chipped road pebbles hitting the undercarriage of a dusty old pickup, the smell of un-converted, carburated exhaust, Randy Travis or George Jones coming through one tattered, terrible speaker...I can almost smell it now. Smells like a time machine, Destination: the happiest days of my life =)

Quote: Face

Memories =) I remember getting so excited for trips to the dump. Pulling into the big pit, tossing the bags in, watching the old pneumatic beast churn to life and smoosh all the bags...doesn't get any better for a 6 year old =D

That smell still gets me. I don't find it foul in any way, shape or form. Just one big, aromatic cloud of pure nostalgia. One whiff and I'm a kid again, riding in back of an old pick up on a hot August day. Cicadas buzzing in the trees, the tick-tack of chipped road pebbles hitting the undercarriage of a dusty old pickup, the smell of un-converted, carburated exhaust, Randy Travis or George Jones coming through one tattered, terrible speaker...I can almost smell it now. Smells like a time machine, Destination: the happiest days of my life =)

Great, I know a few houses for sale on Staten Island, should make you feel right at home :oP

Quote: Face

Isn't that also what these "Adopt a Highway" programs are all about? Or is this just a NY thing? I always see signs about "the next 2 miles adopted by so-and-so or group such and such". Always wondered exactly what that meant. I assumed it was a garbage thing since it's not uncommon to see a group of people (sans orange jumpsuits) walking the roads with bags collecting trash.

Those things started in the very late 80s or very early 90s. I remember some state was short of funds to pay to pick it up so they started the volunteer thing. Then other states joined in. For the group it is good publicity though the "best" spots were spoken for long ago and as in any land rush if your group wants in now you need to go to the sticks if you want interstate.

Here is one weird thing on it that POed some people. Some groups simply paid other groups to pick it up. I had no issue as it is free market. Some types said it was against the "spirit" of it all.

I have done highway clean-up sponsored by my work for several years, and the orange vests are required for safety to be visible by passing cars. We are encouraged to do it at least 4 times per year, starting the weekend of Earth Day. Minimum age 18. We all get hand-held pincher-tongs so we don't need to bend down, orange vests, and many thick white plastic bags which we leave roadside when full for pick-up later; it's our own responsibility to bring work gloves, boots, weather-appropriate clothing. Company pays for breakfast beforehand at a pre-chosen diner to inspire participation. Takes an hour or a bit more for a couple mile stretch of highway. We team up into 4 groups (two groups on each side of highway, and at each end of stretch, and then we work towards the center and meet in the middle, where someone picks us up to take us to our cars at either end). $50 prize to whoever finds the coolest trash.

It's not just for prisoners paying off their community service for shoplifting and drunk-driving.