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.
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.
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?
they just litter all through nature when they go camping
Many americans do just that, yes. :'(
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.
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.
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, 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?
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.
Or, hear me out… carry it until you find one with room? If finding full trash cans “forces” you to litter, that says more about you being an entitled piece of shit than it does about anything else.
OP didn’t say he littered. But of course we always assume the worst around here.
Yeah! Fuck you OP!
“I couldn’t find a single vacant public toilet, so I did what any sensible person would do and took a shit in the middle of the sidewalk.” —OP, analogously
Especially in the US where people drive everywhere more often than not. Keep a small trash bag in your car, empty it when you get home.
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
This likely isn’t a matter of people “not doing their job”. Did you communicate that there was a problem with those trash cans being full? Likely, no one else did, either. Since everyone seems to expect everyone else to complain?
A similar thought process, even though I agree with your original sentiment that we need to have trash cans available: If you would have “done your job” and communicated, there may have been 4 more trash cans available.
Partially agree, people are weirdly reluctant to ask for things to be fixed. I mean who among us has not just decided to skip out on telling the random employee that the bathroom is about out of soap? But how would they know?
The answer of course is that businesses which generate tons of onsite waste and provide trash bins have people whose job it is to keep an eye on cleanliness which includes soap, trash, etc. on a regular basis. Much the same way when you go to a grocery store you’re never out of carts. The difference is people use carts to buy, while garbage is different, so companies optimize for what makes them money at the cost of public good.
Meanwhile in Japan public trash cans are extremely rare and people are expected to bring their trash home and throw it away there. And they do. We are just a spoiled society.
In the US we teach kids that trash men are suckers and idiots that didn’t work hard enough in school! Also, that trash is an externality: Someone else’s problem.
“We pay taxes for people to clean that up! Why should I spend my valuable time doing someone else’s job‽”
It’s an awful culture.
