Learning a Litter More Each Day

Walking along there are things that I see repeatedly.  Because I am the person who uses the soft shoulder more than anyone else in town, mostly what I see is my own footprints, whether sand, snow or mud.  But I also see trash, litter, detritus.

In telling my friend, AP the other day about the three types of things I see the most: (I) cigarette butts and empty packs, (II) alcohol cans and bottles and (III) junk food wrappers, several things occurred to me.

I just see it as a commentary on the types of people who litter.  Growing up in the 1970's as a preteen, I remember well the Indian standing in front of the trashed landscape with a tear in his eye.  It wasn't too long before people started to address the issue.  In my town there were debates and meetings about the idea of a bottle return law.  Many folks thought it would bankrupt the state.  Others claimed an unrealistically huge infrastructure would have to be set up to handle it all.

Now, despite my complaining about the litter I do encounter, the landscape is very nice, overall.  People don't realize how common it was to simply throw an empty container into the woods back in the 1970's or to toss a napkin out of the window while driving.  You just don't see that any more, except in certain populations apparently.

(I) Even though I'm not pleased about it, I can understand - as a former smoker - that when driving it is just easier and saves the mess in the car, to simply toss the used butt out the window.  Of course a different line is crossed when the empty pack goes out too.  But, what looks like the harmless act of tossing a butt out the car window, belies some pretty ugly statistics.

As someone who dabbles in mathematics, I've tried to determine what the frequency of tossed out butts seems to be.  My typical step is about 30 inches (or 2.5 feet).  Counting buts as I walk and keeping track of how many steps were between, I was ASTOUNDED to get an average in one mile's walk, of 1 butt per 1.5 steps.  And often there were multiple butts together.  The average amount of multi-butts was 3, and they occurred about every 4 steps.  Therefore, in one mile of a rural road, only in the soft shoulder or break-down lane (not in the grass, etc.) the numbers look like this...

1 mile (5280 feet) = 2112 steps

Cigarettes buts (at least one) occurred on average every 1.5 steps = at least 1408 butts.

There were an average of 2 extra buts every 4 steps = an extra 528 butts.

1408 buts + 528 buts = a total of 1936 butts.

That is 1 but every 2.73 feet on average.

If we then multiply that by 2 to account for the other side of the road too, we get 1 butt every 1.37 feet in a mile, or a total of 3872 butts per mile.

If we were to calculate all the cigarette buts from my town to the town where my bank is (5 miles), there would be about 19,360 butts, from 968 packs.  Now, since cigarette butts last from 1-5 years (average 2.5 years) that means that about 387 of those packs were bought within the last 12 months.  So, just over one pack's worth of butts a day are tossed into that 5 mile stretch.  Over 1 billion butts are tossed on the ground each day in America.  Why?

(II) It is even more confusing to figure out what people are thinking when they toss out their McDonald's bag containing empty fries' and burger boxes, plastic ware and cup.  I really don't know.  The paper isn't too bad it might only last about 6-12 months, the plastic would last much, much longer about over 500 years. Is it laziness?  Or, is it an attempt to not clutter up the car?  What is really behind the need to rid one's self of the responsibility of taking care of one's own trash?  Like I say, I don't know.  Maybe someone out there can see an angle I'm not able to see?

(III) The most mysterious of all is the tossing of those returnable bottles and cans.  I pick them up if they're not in too bad shape.  Hell, I'd pick up a nickle if I saw it.  And even more strange is the liquor and wine bottles everywhere.  Anecdotally I can tell you that there are as many of these higher value liquor and wine bottles (@ $0.15/each), if not more, than single soda or beer bottles (@$0.05/each).  The crushed aluminum cans I don't pick up to return, could last 55-200 years (average 127 years), the neglected glass bottle could last 1,000 years or more, and a plastic bottle could last over 500 years.  Again, why is there no thought to this behavior by those who do it? 

And it is a little bit disturbing to think that these were tossed out of cars.  I mean were these folks downing vodka as they drove?  Wine?  Even bottles of beer?  We know they weren't lost out of a pile of returnables on their way to the redemption center.  People who return bottles for cash make damn sure the bottles are well bagged.  You don't go through all the trouble to recycle just to be sloppy about how you transport the bottles and cans.  So they have to be drinking and driving.  Or walking at night drinking (less likely).  I know they aren't walking in the daylight drinking, because I walk everywhere and have not observed such a phenomenon.

Finally, it does appear that it is the people who aren't as concerned about their own health or the health of others who are the ones littering: cigarettes, alcohol and junk food wrappers (once containing high amounts of trans-fat, sugar and salt).  My friend, AP agreed, including that you don't see Whole Foods wrappers on the ground very often, or salad containers.  Amazing what I learn, when I actually pay attention to what I see and put a little care into analyzing it.