Wednesday, April 18, 2007

People Are Strange

I live in Mount Pleasant. It is nice, convenient, affordable and so on. But oh my, the litter. There is litter everywhere. There is all kinds of litter. I have seen whole Styrofoam containers with food bits. Six packs of alcohol with the alcohol gone but all the bottles or cans there - sometimes even back in the container. And this boggles my mind. I was taught to pick things up and dispose of them properly. I'm not saying I've never accidentally shed a receipt or a tissue or something, I am sure I have. But an entire food container? No. And if you are able (or anal) enough to put the beer bottles back in the container, why does that not extend to full disposal. Sure, some of the streets are residential enough that there are not trash cans everywhere. Although the main drag has a main bus line so there are cans every block. Every block, and still - litter, litter, litter.
And I don't know what it is? I've lived in renter-plentiful areas before. I've lived in ethnically diverse neighborhoods before. Heck, I think even in the neighborhood that my mother described as one where there were cars on the lawn (in fact, I believe the car was my roommate's, but I digress) and there was less litter.
Some people either don't believe in the golden rule, or don't apply it to property, be it public or just someone else's. So it doesn't seem a problem to leave food bits or trash or poo somewhere that the rest of us have to deal with it. They don't see that it affects the whole community.