Wednesday 7 June 2017

Why do people just put rubbish on top of things?

The note is gone unfortunately. If I had made time to take this photo a day or so earlier it would have been there. This is the protective stanchion at the exit to our building's parking garage and there was one resident of the building who would repeatedly put his or her used disposable coffee cup on top of it. It was annoying another resident so much that they - the other resident - stuck to the top of the stanchion a hand-written note asking the litterer to stop. Then other residents with the same feelings wrote their own views on the same sign until it was covered with writing. All messages of disgust.

But this is how it is in our cities. People just put their rubbish on top of any available thing that they come across in the street as soon as they can get rid of whatever they hold in their hands. They do it on seats, on traffic light signal boxes, on walls, on those plastic barriers put out to control crowds, on stanchions and anywhere else that is to-hand.

The city I live in is replete with rubbish bins but a lot of people cannot bother waiting until they see one before disposing of their unwanted garbage anywhere and everywhere. It's even worse with cigarette butts, which unthinking people just drop on the pavement without a moment's thought. And we wonder why the ocean is full of rubbish thrown away - or just put on top of some handy piece of street furniture - by some rascal too lazy to look for a legitimate place to put it. It's disgusting but there you go. We are a careless creature when we only think about our own convenience. You don't see this sort of litter in a place like Tokyo, where people are always careful not to bring inconvenience to their neighbours. We should all be more like the Japanese, I think.

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