Every Little Bit Hurts -- Figuring Out Trashy Behavior

So the first day I decided to start picking up trash in my neighborhood, I stuffed my pockets with Ralph's grocery bags, (thank God for cargo pants) took my new E-Z Reacher in hand and headed out with the dog. My "route" covered the street where I lived and the one perpendicular to it, punctuated by two dumpsters into which I never tossed less than three bags' worth of trash. I did this third of a mile almost every morning for the better part of 4 years.

I lived in a specific immigrant enclave, but it doesn't matter which. I know of upscale neighborhoods with the same ethnic concentration and their streets and sidewalks are clean. Littering is a question of social class, not race or ethnicity. Wherever people own homes, they want their environs to be a reflection of who they are. The apartment dwellers where I lived didn't seem to have the same sentiment. Even in front of their own buildings, there seemed to be an utter indifference to litter, even a complete willingness to add to it. Picking up after them on a daily basis, it was impossible not to notice who they were and observe them intently.

Some of the worst offenders were the middle-aged men who smoked mountains of Capri cigarettes, tossing so many empty packs onto the street that if I had $5 for every one I eventually picked up, I would now be living in a villa on the real Capri. I would watch groups of 4 or 5 of these men gather in front of the building next door at night, after long shifts driving cabs, delaying their return to cramped apartments with zero privacy from wives, children, in-laws. They would shoot the shit, pass around pints of B&J Brandy or Popov Vodka between them, and drop the finished bottles on the grass or bury them in a large bush from where I'd extract them in the morning.

It would have taken about 60 steps to toss these bottles into a dumpster. Why did these men trash their own neighborhood when it would have been so easy not to?

I eventually came up with a few theories, the first of which was that disposing of the litter properly represented the kind of consideration and attention to detail they considered feminine, and therefore weak. Not that they were remotely conscious of this, but I'm convinced that for many men -- regardless of race or ethnicity -- the willingness to litter has misogyny (or, to be generous, machismo) at its root.

My second theory was more esoteric. I wondered if, having been disabused of the notion that hard work in America guaranteed entree into the middle class, a sense of powerlessness had set in. At some level, littering was a way to say: "I'm here. I'm not invisible." When I shared this idea with my friend Sam, he disagreed with me. "I think it's just the opposite. I think it's because they feel so inconsequential that they don't think their littering has any impact at all."

I couldn't decide which of the theories was sadder. That someone would litter on purpose, or because he didn't feel it made any difference at all.

[Next: What Gets Tossed: Where is all the Litter Coming From?]

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Comments

[janie@atthelake]

Very well written and sadly the truth.

[Eclectic Radical]

I think JohnFromCensornati makes a useful point about capitalist culture, but I think it is important to remember that Mark is right. Most homeowners don't dump a lot of trash in their own yards or on the streets in their own neighborhoods. People litter in bad neighborhoods, either because they live there but don't feel rooted (a common problem among the economically disenfranchised) or because they are passing through and don't care.

I know you will get this Mark, being from the LA area:

How many people in nice clean neighborhoods throw their trash from McDonald's, the catering van, or the ice cream cart on the ground in Exposition Park because it's someone else's problem?

[Mark Olmsted - Huffpost Blogger]

In my experience, people litter, or they don't. People who live in nice neighorhoods and don't litter there don't litter elsewhere, either.

[Sheria Reid]

I have no empirical evidence to support this, but I have noiticed that in nice resorts where the cost prohibits persons wiht low-incomes from being visitors, littering still takes place. Of course, maybe they also litter their own neighborhoods. But there seems to be a sense of entitlement that motivates people to leave their trash behind for others to dispose of when they are away from home. They don't so much throw their trash on the ground, they just leave it behind--disposable cups by the pool, food wrappers, cigarette butts. However, I freely concede that I haven't the experience of paying more than peripheral attention to people's trash disposal habits and I defer to your expertise.

I am enjoying this series. Insightful commentary on the quirks of human nature never bores me.

[JohnFromCensornati]

I think your misogyny theory is interesting, but obviously limited.
I believe it's common laziness in a culture where "disposable" and "convenient" are highly prized thanks to rampant capitalism and omnipresent commercial marketing/­brainwashi­ng. It doesn't get a whole lot more convenient than throwing stuff on the ground.

[Mark Olmsted - Huffpost Blogger]

Trust me, this was very limited to the working class immigrant population of my neighborhood. There are many reasons behind littering that will be explored in later posts.

[keres]

I think there are multiple factors playing into all anti-social behaviors. Certainly, masculinity is often evidenced by a disregard for others. The more you care about something or someone, the more easily your affinities can be used against you. Women's behavior is frequently controlled by threats to the well-being of their children. Caring, especially about "niceties" such as cleanliness, is "womanish". An extreme example of this dynamic is portrayed in "The Usual Suspects" when Söze kills his wife and children rather than let himself be hindered by threats to their safety.

Andrea Dworkin the connection between masculinity and race by defining the "nexus between race and sex" as a bribe whereby white men "cede" to non-white men (and I would add working-class white men, as well) a more virile (and virulent) form of masculinity. In this deal, the degraded male sees his masculinity as his only possession of true value - and is even more loath to "contaminate it with empathy".

Also, as you point out, it's mainly poverty- and working-class people who inhabit the kind cramped housing that encourages hanging out in public spaces (and the law's obsession with devoting such disproportionate resources to policing "public" crimes). Littering, by definition is done to public spaces. The more property you have, the more you can hide behind closed doors.

Added to all of this is the sort of "tit for tat" whereby disrespect from the dominant culture is returned by "dissing" their conventions in return.