The intangible benefits of garbage

I don’t believe in altruism.  Never have.  Anybody who does something good does so for one reason and one reason only – they are getting something out of the deal.I apply that to myself as well.  If I feel like picking up other peoples’ garbage is a good idea, then I must be getting some benefit out of it, tangible or intangible.The other day as I was walking to work, several pieces of effluvia in my hand, thinking about why I do this.  At the heart of it, I believe in leaving things better than I found them, as a general principle.  There is definitely a trace of OCD in there, helping to drive that forward.But when I really think about it, it occurs to me that there are several aspects of my commitment to One Piece a Day that resonate with me. 

Mindfulness

When I create an intention to act, it creates a focus in my life, a noticing.  I notice the quality and cleanliness of my surroundings.  Instead of ignoring, I notice and I act.  I tune in to the state of the world around me, and I take action.  I see the stains on the sidewalk, the homeless in the streets.  I am a witness to the world, and I believe that witnessing is good in and of itself. 

During the day, I am aware of my commitment and it is never far from my thoughts.  I am mindful of whether I have met my commitment for the day.  It becomes part of the meditation of my day, something separate from my work and home, something that is mine and that helps to color my existence.

Humility

Picking up garbage grounds me.  In a literal way, it brings me close to the ground.  In a figurative way it forces my ego to abase itself, to orient itself to the earth, to put itself at the service of higher parts of myself.  In a cultural way, it reminds me that I’m a child of the earth, that I’m not too good to touch the ground, that other people are my equal.  It breaks through social stigma, and I’m hopeful that others will notice and be inspired to take up the practice themselves.

Service

As a member of society, I owe service to my city, state, and country, and to my fellow humans.  By picking up garbage, I improve my corner of the world. I reduce the need for paid city employees to pick up trash.  I improve the quality of life for others around me, as well as for myself – I take more pleasure in an environment that is clean and tidy, where grass appears green and natural and sidewalks are not littered with butts and food wrappers.  I put myself at the service of others without expecting anything in return.

Health

My body is a self-healing machine.  My immune system responds to foreign germs by building specific resistance.  Picking up garbage puts me in touch with the germs in my environment, allowing my body to build a better resistance.  My practice helps remind me to wash my hands and be mindful of the cleanliness of my hands when I eat.

One piece a day is good for me, for my environment, and for society. Will you join me?

The Biodegradable fallacy

When my girlfriend Bree and I were living together in 1987, we had a bright idea:  why mess around with the labor of composting?  We had a huge garden, and everything that went into the compost was biodegradable.  Why not compost the way nature does?  So we did what seemed to make sense:  we started tossing our food waste directly into the yard, beneath our fruit trees, beneath shrubs, in amongst the herbs. Soon our garden was littered with orange and banana peels, lettuce ends, apple cores, and other detritus from our kitchen.

We learned a few things over the year that we ran this experiment.  We learned that without a moist anaerobic environment, vegetable matter dries out and degrades very slowly.  We learned that even natural matter scattered around the garden looks like trash – we noticed it, and the neighbors complained.  Above all, we learned that “biodegradable” does not mean it’s ok to throw it in random parts of the yard, and that yes, there is a reason to go through the little bit of effort  necessary to accelerate decomposition through proper composting.

Which brings me to the topic of today.  Ever since the advent of the compostable coffee cup, there seems to be an uptick in the amount of coffee cups dumped on the side of the road.  I second guessed this observation for months, but when the cups started to pile up in certain areas, it became evident that one or more somebodies had fallen prey to the same fallacy that I had decades before: that “biodegradable” or “compostable” means it’s ok to just drop the cup in the dirt on the side of the road, and that nature would take care of disposal. 

I ran into the same fallacy this week in South Lake Union when I came across a mall pile of discarded containers in the gravel near Whole Foods.  I picked them up and, sure enough, they all had the word “compostable” printed on them. 

Folks, these are not leaves decomposing on the forest floor.  They are man-made artifacts that are designed to break down when shredded and mixed with a bacterial slurry in a composting facility.  When they disappear from where you left them, it does not mean that nature has taken its course.  It means that somebody with more common sense than you has picked them up and disposed of them properly, one piece at a time.

No ifs ands or butts - probing smoker psychology

I’ve been scratching my head for a couple of years now over the profusion of cigarette butts that collect on the ground.

Litter, I understand.  Most of the time, litter does not result from people wantonly throwing trash on the ground.  Trash cans overfill, and trash falls off the top.  Crows scavenge food wrappers from the bin and don’t think to replace them when they’ve finished eating the tasty morsels.  Cups are forgotten on the tops of cars, or spill unseen from the side of the seat when the door is opened.  These are not intentional acts of littering.

Cigarette butts, on the other hand, are put there by smokers.  The cigarette is smoked to the nub, and the burning thing is dropped on the ground and not picked up again.

Why?  Why would presumably normal intelligent people, most of whom would probably never stoop to throwing litter on the ground, believe it is acceptable to throw these artifacts to the pavement and leave them there?  And of all things, why something that when combined with rainwater results in toxic chemicals being carried into waterways with adverse impact to marine life?

I have contemplated approaching smokers to ask them this question.  I have not done so; not because I am afraid to approach people in public, but because I cannot imagine a way of phrasing the question without coming across as antagonistic and preachy.  Maybe I am antagonistic and preachy.  I just don’t want to ruin somebody’s day or have them ruin mine, so I keep quiet and wonder.

In the absence of actual evidence, I have speculated and come up with hypotheses.  Some of these are supported by research – this seems to be a common question in online forums.

1. A cigarette is a burning object and is not safe to place in a receptacle which may contain flammable materials.  If there is no ashcan specifically made to contain burning materials, then putting the butt on the ground is the safe thing to do.  A corollary of this line of thinking is that people who maintain public facilities have the obligation to provide proper disposal for flammable materials in all public spaces, and if these are not provided then a smoker cannot be held responsible for littering.   (Question: if you put out the offending item by stepping on it, isn’t it ready for disposal?  Or does the fact that it has been on the ground now make it dirty and offensive to touch? )
2.    Cigarettes are thrown from cars because butts left in the ashtray create a worse smell in the car than the residue left by the smoke.
3.  Cigarettes are small and seem like an innocuous thing to leave behind.
4.  Piles of butts gather in certain areas – outside businesses or at park and ride lots – and the presence of butts on the ground creates the perception that it’s ok – after all, what’s one more butt where there are already so many?

While all of these seem plausible, I’d like to advance another theory.  Smoking in our society has become less and less acceptable over the years, beginning with the surgeon general’s report on smoking and health in 1964, and smokers, already guilty over their addictions, are more and more marginalized – pushed out of public buildings and their own workspaces, made to feel inferior, and maybe even invisible.  Could this be a smoker’s small and subconscious way of showing up, of saying “I’m here?”  Could leaving a butt in a pile of butts left by other smokers be a way of expressing solidarity against a world where smoking is a badge of dishonor?

In any case, I try to pick up one or more butts every day in addition to other trash.  Join me, will you?

Ready-bagged trash day

I bus to work as often as possible, parking at a local park and ride.  Which park and ride I choose depends on where I plan to end up after work and (more usually) how late in the morning it is – the most direct commuter buses don’t tend to run past 8 AM weekdays.

Park and ride lots are hotspots for street trash – and I’m not talking about the disenfranchised youth of our fair city.  I’m talking about discarded advertising postcards from peoples’ windows, coffee cups that fell or were tossed from commuters’ cars, windblown newspapers, too many cigarette butts to count (more on that in a future post!), and a surprising number of lost or discarded articles of clothing.

Imagine my surprise when I stopped to pick up what looked like a big wad of trash, only to discover that it was already conveniently bagged.  It looks like somebody took the time to bag up the trash from their car, put that bag inside another bag… and then somehow the whole mess wound up in the planted island between parking rows, instead of the rubbish bin where it belonged.  All I can say is, somebody meant well.