Picking Up Litter

How nobody's job becomes all of our job

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Litter (photo illustration by Heath Racela)

I was taking my dog for a walk down my street yesterday when I noticed a drink cup that had been littered on the sidewalk. It was the kind that a fast food restaurant uses with a paper cup, a plastic lid, and a plastic straw.

It had not been there the day before when we walked this same stretch of sidewalk, so I knew it was relatively new. I was a bit annoyed by it. Who still litters in 2023? And who’s supposed to clean this up?

Betty Draper littering from Mad Men

I started to walk past the cup to continue with walking my dog when I had what should be an obvious realization. Because I was walking my dog, I was carrying a plastic bag with his doo doo in it that would be going into the trash when I got home. In other words, I was literally walking around the neighborhood with a trash bag. Who was in a better position than me in that moment to clean up?

I decided to pick up the litter and bring it home with me to dispose of properly. While I don’t have the official title of a city worker, I still have a vested interest and a role to play in maintaining my neighborhood, even if it’s only in small ways.

If everybody ignored the problem, it would only get worse. If everybody took whatever small action they were able to in the moment, things get better.

I think there’s a broader lesson here about how we move through the world these days. We face any number of massive crises on a daily basis: racial discrimination, climate change, gun violence, contaminated drinking water, high costs of education and medical care. At times, it feels like the very threads that bind our society together are frayed beyond the point of repair.

In those moments, we can choose to look at everything as somebody else’s problem, like I did originally with that piece of litter. Or we can choose to see that any problem in our society is a problem for all of us to help solve.

We may not have caused the problem (I didn’t litter that cup), we may not be able to solve the larger problem (I can’t easily stop everybody from littering), but we can take some small action to stop the situation from getting worse and improve our little corner of the world in that moment.

Forgoing fast food is a small step many of us can take. Consider how much waste is generated from simply getting the meal out of the restaurant and into your hands- the paper bag, the food wrappers, the disposable napkins, the drink cups and straws that end up as litter. And that’s to say nothing of the conditions that chickens and cows are raised in, the low wages of fast food workers, or the negative health effects of many of the highly processed ingredients.

Being mindful of our consumption is another small action that can have big results. The longer that we can hold on to something, be it an article of clothing, a toy, a tool, or an iPhone, the less raw materials that are being used in the manufacture of new items. If we do need replacements, considering used options cuts down on waste too.

When it comes to racial issues, I’ve learned fairly recently that the most important role somebody like me (a white, cis male) can play is to use my voice to speak up against the problem in small ways with the people in my life. It’s important to stand up when there’s obvious discrimination happening. But it’s even more important to speak out against the small actions that serve to reinforce the racial power structure in this country, the seemingly benign jokes made at a dinner table or stereotyping.

The problems of our world don’t get solved entirely with small actions. At some point, it takes big changes to the structures of our society to make a lasting, meaningful difference.

But I also think it’s worth remembering that large actions don’t come from nowhere. They start as small actions.

If you don’t exercise and are asked to do 100 pushups, it’s nearly impossible. Your arms will buckle, your body will hurt, you’ll sweat. But starting with 10 pushups a day may be a challenge for the first few days, but will eventually become easy. After getting comfortable with 10 and making them part of your daily routine, 20 becomes the next goal. You can’t start out doing 100 pushups, but with practice, it becomes easier and easier to build to the big number.

So the next time you find yourself in my shoes, looking at a problem that somebody else caused but that you are in a position to help solve, realize that it is your job to pick up the litter, especially if you already have all the tools you need for the job with you. You don’t have to be one of those people with the long poles and a giant garbage bag to make a difference- start with one little piece and keep going.

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Related Reading

The Trash of the Future

Dead People’s Stuff

If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.

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