Litter

This Saturday, the local trash collection company--the one that has the community in something of an uproar over whether curbside recyling collection is one of the defining features of modern life—is sponsoring a local roadside litter cleanup day. We’ll see whether those who are deeply in favor of curbside recycling are equally in favor of curbside litter pickup. If recent history is any indication, it doesn’t look promising. Last spring, when such a day was scheduled—just in time to greet the summer visitors with clean roadsides—the response amounted to three or four kids, most of whom were the children of the guy who runs the trash collection company and sponsors the litter roadside cleanup. We were up in B.C. that week, but we will be here for this session and will make our appearance on the road with bags and tongs.

Of course, if people stopped throwing crap along the roadside in the first place, none of us would have to go out and pick it up in the second place. It just wouldn’t be an issue. The received wisdom, of course, is that the people who do the throwing are NOT the same people as those who do the litter picking up; instead, it is our friends and neighbors whom we normally think kindly towards. Some other received wisdom is that it is the NOT the residents of Point Roberts who do all this throwing of stuff out their car windows or out of their hands and pockets, but instead are the summer visitors whom we think of as an important stimulus to our local economy when we’re not thinking about them as mindless litterers.

I don’t know who it is who does all this throwing out and away. I wish they’d stop. Maybe they are the same people who are trying to overturn Seattle’s recent law requiring that people pay for plastic bags at stores. An initiative was recently sponsored by the American Chemistry Council. (According to the Seattle mayor, this is a trade group for, among other things, plastic bag manufacturers.) It was a paid signature initiative drive, so it was successful and now Seattle voters will be able to do the metaphorical equivalent in content if not in time of picking up local, roadside litter. If Seattle is able to defeat this attempt to repeal its plastic bag fee, it will certainly lead to fewer plastic bags in lots of places, including by the sides of roads. I hope they get out and vote in significant numbers against this repeal initiative. But then, I hope that people in Point Roberts will turn out in significant numbers to help clean up the roadsides. In addition, I am keenly aware of the fact that hope is not a plan.

My plan is to, in words ever present at Neilsen’s Hardware, ‘Just do it!’ I am hoping that those of you in this vicinity just do it, too. It’s tough to be a community; we are living through an era in which there is less sense of community than we have had in a century. (See Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam’s book on the collapse of American community and the steady reduction of community volunteer activities). This Saturday is a small thing to do, but that doesn’t make it an unimportant thing to do. Pick up bags at the Transfer Station. I don't think roll will be taken, but I'm pretty sure it will be on the final exam.