The Litter Paradox

So you are wandering around your neighborhood, with your litter-picker-uppers and your trusty bucket, cleaning up after the neighborhood like a good little doobie.


You're going to make the neighborhood a better place.

You pick up the broken glass, the plastic soda bottles, the blunt wrappers, the cigarette butts...

You pick up the lotto tickets, the scratch offs, celephane candy bags...


And then it occurs to you.

If I pick up after them... does it encourage them to not take care of themselves?

and then the questions start... the disillisionment begins...


I just picked up another needle. Am I in possesion of drug paraphenalia?

I'm trespassing.


just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie.

You don't think this was a weapon?

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie.

well, this area seems clear... move on...

oh wait... theres a lighter half covered in sand.
oh... and a plastic fork sticking up out of the sand.
look at that little bit of plastic there, I wonder what it broke away from.
look what the dog just dug up... "drop it" "not yours" "poison"
wait... whats this in the sand...
I think its a mattress with a garden hose running through it... we're gonna have to come back for this one.

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie.

broken glass, plastic bottles, blunt wrappers, cigarette butts...

dump

broken glass, plastic bottles, blunt wrappers, cigarette butts...

dump

broken glass, batteries, plastic bottles


Wait a minute... batteries?

plastic bottles, soda cans??

car tires, half empty oil motor oil pints, half empty water-logged tylenol bottle?

dump?

dump?
dump?
dump?


just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie.


wallet, credit cards and cash removed. 2 forms of ID.

dump?

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

look at how clean the neighborhood is...
I was a good doobie...

accuweather forcast, strong wind.

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

the toxicity of it all...
the plastic
the waste
the smell
the garbage can

the corner store

grrrrr

the corner store junkies

ger grrrrr

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

the corporation...
the manufacturer...

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

the toxicity...
the color ink... the little pieces...

the packaging from my litter picker uppers...
how did that get to the other side of the block?

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

well the can is full... and within the hour the garbage man is on his way...

there he is... machine engaged... biiig dumparooo...

and there goes the some of the litter in the wind;

should have bought and used a plastic bag?

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

Hello? Did you not see me out here picking up litter? I would genuinely appreciate it if you could pick that up. "Man, you needsta chill, I wudn't littan...dat iz jus a wrappa."

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

system of a down toxicity
korn blind
disturbed are you breathing
metallica sanatarium
ozzy crazy train
pantera rise

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

Not angry... just crying... alergies... plastic dust in the air or something.

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

What's wrong with your mind? What's wrong with my mind? What's wrong with our mind?

Is it time to keep picking up litter? Or is it time for something else?

half buried again...

plastic water bottles caps
pieces of plastic water pipe

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

used plastic diapers
bloody latex bandages

just keep picking up litter... be a good doobie...

i appreciate you reading along. enjoy your next litter clean up mission...


be a good doobie,

Sri Oracle

[edit on 1-4-2008 by Sri Oracle]

I'm not a good doobie. I'm not a bad doobie. I'm not a doobie at all. So don't torch me. LOL. All kidding aside, I enjoyed your thread starter. I think that it's not only a good story, but that it is good advice to people that if they want to make a difference, they should stand up and just start doing. At least that is what I hope you were trying to say with your post here. You can correct me if I am wrong.

Just a reflection, made while picking up the block.... metal mix playing through my head.... If I do suggest anything... its the songs listed in order... then a re-read. tip toeing the paradoxical line through the realm of madness, at the edge of dark vortex looking in...

Though swimming in litter...

I think I am going to avoid placing should's out there on this subject.

reporting,

Sri

I know what you mean I pick up bags of trash from the public housing down the street that blows into my yard. Some of the people even drive up to our street, park, eat their fast food and drink their beer and then dump it in the street and go back to their tax payer paid apartments.

I have told them to pick up their trash and they flipped me off, I was lucky they didn't get out their car and kill me.

I started a thread about the litter buggers too called, “Litter bugs, is there a pesticide to treat them.”


www.belowtopsecret.com...

I used to do litter patrol on a regular basis for about eight blocks around my home.

I kept finding butter knives. Every couple of days, another butter knife would end up somewhere on my walk.

I would just collect them and recycle them, picked up about 24 in all over a period of five months.

Haven't seen a butter knife in a while now.