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mysinful t1_j2bn00c wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Just watched a car dump handfuls of trash out of their window as they drove through our hotel’s parking lot, they were less than 20 feet from a trash can that they could have reached without getting out of the car. This is why we can’t have nice things. by TheDiscoGodfather

I disagree. It is more like they don’t take pride nor ownership of their surroundings and are used to being a victim of circumstance where not caring about the greater good is the way to take care of yourself. It’s a deep rooted societal problem not a bunch of maladjusted individuals. They don’t feel a part of their location or community so have no qualms wrecking it.

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SaveFailsafe t1_j2bsjwy wrote

Yeah I buy that reasoning for the people absent-mindedly dumping fast food wrappers in the gutter, but not for people who intentionally dump carfuls of trash like OP described. That's on a different level and speaks to a greater psychological dysfunction.

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UptownHiFi t1_j2bu6sh wrote

That’s it. The greater the sense of ownership of public spaces the higher the standard of acceptable behavior.

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ElectricStar87 t1_j2did3e wrote

I see your point, but let me pose a question:

If you’re traveling in a place you’ve never been and will never come back to, do you just throw trash on the ground? After all, you don’t have any connection to or “investment” in the place whatsoever.

I suspect the answer for the vast majority of people is “no”.

Sure, there’s a larger disenfranchisement issue in Baltimore, but there’s a lot of generally jerk behavior here and in the rest of the world as well.

I think there’s also a distinction to be made between people littering in already abused (“disinvested”) areas where we might see littering as a more expected behavior, given your critique, and people littering in otherwise “kept-up areas” (whatever that may mean and why) — I’ve definitely seen flagrant littering in both.

There’s also a decent amount of illegal littering in rural areas, but it’s just more spread out. Interesting research here.

I’d also like to take this moment to remind everyone that most cigarette butts don’t actually decompose quickly. Somehow most smokers (which was for many years practically a majority of Americans) take it for granted that tossing butts is totally fine. Not sure if this is related or not.

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