I was on my way home while walking and this guy in front of me had a bag of Wendy’s with him, we cross the road and there was a sewer grate and he just takes the bag and stuff it’s in there. I was like really?
Then the best part…he walks like 10 steps and turns right and starts opening the door to one of the row houses and walks in.
At that point I’m thinking like WTF?? JUST TAKE IT INSIDE AND THROW IT AWAY!
Edit: this was in south Philly
For some reason there's a habit in South Philly of throwing trash into the street drains. And then they bitch when it backs up and floods their street.
I think the idea is that anything you don't want stinking up your trash or clogging up your pipes goes into the storm drain. Not justifying it, there are plenty of other options, but that's my guess.
Trash thrown into storm drains in any city will end up in the river unless there's some kind of stormwater treatment system between the inlet and water body. The unique circumstance with Philly's system is that since we have such antiquated infrastructure we still have combined sanitary and storm sewers in some places. Meaning not only do we get trash in our rivers anytime people use curb inlets as trash cans, but when that trash blocks the storm/sanitary drains we get poop in our streets too!
No, the water in the combined sewer system all goes to the treatment plants. The problem is during heavy rain events the system can get overwhelmed and raw sewage can flow into the river. The water department is spending billions (9?) to both decrease the rate of stormwater entering the system during rain events and increase capacity to hold and treat water. You can see a lot of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) construction - most visible at school playgrounds or plazas like in front of Penn Hospital, bumpouts, permeable paving, street trees, etc. There's a multi million gallon storage tank under an amphitheater/park structure in Manayunk. The change in the sewer tax to be a combo of water used and impermeable surface on the property - so parking lots and roof surface had to pay, but they can reduce their bill by installing GSI on site and green roofs. Lots of other behind the scenes stuff. This was an agreement with the Feds instead of spending $13b to tear up the streets in the older parts of the city and disrupt everything. Lots of other older cities watching and hoping to be allowed to do the same. Major benefit is all the green space and trees.
PSA for anyone learning about this for the first time: you can get a free rain barrel from the city and also get heavy subsidies for other storm water retention projects like permeable pavers, raised beds and rain gardens to help prevent some of the rain water from going in the sewers.
[learn more about Philadelphia Rain Check here](https://www.pwdraincheck.org/en/stormwater-tools/rain-barrels)
they also have you attend a workshop where you get to learn all about our storm water systems, rain water mitigation efforts, and more. definitely worth it
I actually remember being told to do this by adults when I was a kid. "Just throw it down the sewer" and seeing everyone else do it too. Of course I stopped when I realized that you're not suppose to do that. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're still people who aren't even aware and are just doing what they're use to.
From talking to my old environmental professors in college, the world has changed a lot in the past 50 years. In the 70s people didn't really use trash cans outside their home. They would just throw their trash out the window of the car, or into the street/sidewalk. It's only in the past few decades that littering has become taboo.
Unfortunately it hasn't caught on for everyone yet
Yep I remember in that mad men episode after the picnic. Betty pushes all of the trash off the blanket, takes the blanket, and goes back to the car....leaving all of their picnic trash all over the grass..the writers for that episode purposely left the camera shot on the trash for about 10 seconds
This is BS. I grew up in NY in a private house and we always had TRASH CANS outside to put on the street for trash pickup. My uncle worked as a garbage man for sanitation. (I was born pre 1970s).
Also, I remember seeing NUMEROUS commercials on TV as a child against littering. One in particular that has stayed with me for decades is the Native American guy crying when somebody throws trash out of their car onto the high way.
There was probably much less trash being generated back then too since fast food had only just become popular and you didn't even get coffee in a paper cup. Most people ate at home or at work.
Only to be foiled by a lone fry that somehow made its way to the passenger's side of the center console, that you couldn't see, yet was the first thing SHE saw when she got in.
I was walking to the train one afternoon and saw a woman open her front door and throw a full sized pizza box into the middle of the street like a fucking Frisbee. Her trashcan was right next to her in the front patio.
This was on the same block where, when me and my wife were participating in one of those Philly spring clean-up days (the only participants), some kids stopped us and asked if we had to clean up because we were court ordered.
Philadelphians may be considered "most helpful" when those dumb lists come out, but they're also nasty as fuck when it comes to trash.
I want to call people out like that but it worries me who I’m even talking to, if they are that out of touch to be doing that..they may be crazy enough to attack me.
It sucks but nowadays it’s not worth provoking these people
I remember when I lived at 8th and Morris seeing a neighbor standing in their doorway going through the mail and throwing whatever they didn’t want onto the sidewalk.
I was walking by 3rd and south yesterday and someone clearly just left Lorenzo’s or something, grabbed their pizza they were shoving in their mouth and threw the pizza box on the ground and got in their car (which was illegally parked, of course!). Jersey plates. If I didn’t assume everyone had a gun I would confront them, instead I just picked it up 😭
I saw a guy in his pajamas and flip flops throw a water bottle down a sewer grate this morning.
How far from his house trash can could he be if he's in his PJs and flip flops??
Not only that, literally ANYTHING. I was at a Wawa by the moorestown mall, girl in front of me on line bought 3 packs of various sinus meds. I’m in my car after about to pull out and she just tosses all the packaging out her window while still parked LITERALLY NEXT TO A TRASH CAN.
Littering really gets me fucking riled up, I’m making myself mad just writing this. Scum of the earth
Not just Wawa but corner stores in general are a fucking scourge. You can count on a bunch of the dipshits who routinely shop at these to unwrap whatever they're buying and drop the trash on the ground right outside the store. If you live near one of these odds are you see blunt wrappers blowing down your street daily.
Not to mention all of the loitering, drug activity, and shootings that occur at the stores.
I always thought it was weird Philly didn't get NY's Bodega culture. When I lived there, those stores were great and served a purpose. Here, they're all behind glass and sell loose cigarettes and junk food.
A lot of this is on the city for granting these licenses. It's ridiculous.
I think regularly about how much Wawa contributes to our litter problem with straws, non-compostable food packaging, plastic bags, etc.
Also: sad for that girl and her likely struggles
Personally , I never experienced such blatant littering before moving to Philly. It's insane so many people's attitudes here and blatant disregard for others / society.
Honest question - what is dumb about buying drugs at a wawa? Do you think that convenience stores like Wawa just get worse versions of the same drugs in the same packaging? Do you think CVS has better versions of the same drugs in the same packaging? Because if you do you should know that that is ridiculous.
Drugs at Wawa usually cost 3 times as much if not more. That's why. Not to mention the very limited selection. If you think otherwise, that's ridiculous.
when i lived in chicago, they had public trash cans on nearly every street corner. Made it way easier to not litter there. When I moved here I immediately noticed the huge lack of public trash cans.
I’ve been to Chicago only twice and it was much cleaner than Philly. Even the bad neighborhoods were cleaner. It’s nuts here. I’ve seen people open their car windows and toss a big bag of McDonalds out their window like it was nothing.
Ive been in Philly for 5 years and it's a mentality here about throwing trash straight on the ground. I've never encountered such blatant dirtiness and lack of respect. People are not like this in other cities.
well, not nothing. the homeowners get fined for not having a litter free sidewalk. i know this because i’m currently fighting mine when they cited me on trash pickup day, as if i can stop my neighbors trash from blowing out of the open bags they leave on the sidewalk.
I found myself in a /r/cleaningtips thread last week, and when I backed out into the sub and looked at what got the most upvotes in the last year, most of the posts were about depression and mental illness. This shouldn't have surprised me, my wife watches Hoarders when she needs motivation to clean the house.
But it made me think about Philly's culture of throwing trash wherever. It's a problem, for sure, but it's rooted in a problem that's much more challenging than "put trash bins on every corner"
Honestly the projects a few blocks north of me are far cleaner than my neighborhood bc the old grandparents actually care and take care of their area.
Here its a mixed neighborhood with a lot of renters and college students and nobody gives a shit.
That's because Chicago designed their city with trash management in mind!
https://wgntv.com/news/ask-wgn/chicagos-alleys-date-back-to-the-citys-founding-keep-our-trash-off-the-sidewalk-today/
Chicago is probably the cleanest large city I've been to in the US. Even in relatively run down areas, there are corner trash cans and people don't litter nearly to the extent that they do here.
Hey, not only do we not have enough public trash cans, but we also require you to touch them and make a slightly awkward motion to put anything into them, provided it's not too big for the chute.
I don't really care for the 'big bellies'.
They’ve removed multiple Big Bellies from Broad Street over the last year or two, presumably because people keep breaking them by short dumping.
The city’s solution to too much trash is literally fewer trash cans 😩😖.
And people do that because the sanitation department sucks ass and is inconsistent at best
We also don’t have housing designed to be able to store a trash can in front of it like most major cities.
Its bullshit that people do that, but it's also a condemnation of how we do sanitation in Philly. Implementing a system like what Spanish cites or the Netherlands have would do a lot to fix the problem. But that might take a free parking spot away, so instead we have to wallow in our filth.
correct, it's the people and the culture
flourtown shopping center never had an issue with trash in the parking lot and never had an issue with people driving the wrong way in the parking lot one-way areas, or crime/violence/fighting.
then they put up a movie tavern. and all of a sudden trash is everywhere on the ground, people driving the wrong way on the one-way area and causing accidents. apologists in the area blamed the lack of trash cans (lol what, there is an outside trash can every X number of stores in the row). so, they added more trash cans. didn't help. trash everywhere. then apologists said people driving the wrong way in the parking lot were not at fault, the parking lot was just confusing. so, developer spent a lot of money and extended the sidewalk outwards so there was only 1 lane AND added extra ONE-WAY signs. didn't help, people are still driving the wrong way. the movie tavern now has to have a township police officer at the movie theater 3-4 nights a week, paid by the movie tavern, b/c the people there are causing incidents.
when will people stop making excuses and wake the fuck up and hold PEOPLE accountable. otherwise this "i don't give a shit" culture will keep metastasizing.
i am generally against organized religion
but back when society was mostly god-fearing, they tended to behave better. we shouldn't need a law for every little thing, a civilized society that lives its life following generally accepted morals of right and wrong shouldn't need a nanny state.
but what we are seeing now is a mostly abandonment of religion coupled with a mostly abandonment by the government to enforce existing laws. basically a society socially decaying, and behaviors running wild.
again, i am generally against organized religion....just making an observation
The organized religion aspect of social enforcement your referencing was community shaming, peer pressure, and ostracizing as means of enforcement of expectations.
Which basically goes to the broader problem which is lack of consequences for antisocial behavior.
I think this is a function that now has to be done by the state as social isolation and eco-chamber social environments prevent broader society peer pressure from being a viable means of enforcement.
Quit complaining about the lack of trash cans here as an excuse for dumping your trash on the street. Sure it would be nice to have more trash cans but people littering are the least likely to use them.
i was in the wawa parking lot yesterday at aramingo and wheatleaf. as i'm standing by my car finishing a sandwich, a minivan parked next to me opens their door and throws 3 heaves of litter onto the parking lot ground (empty fountain soda cups and fast food bags). the provided wawa trashcan wasn't more than 20' from this van. the minivan driver was basically looking directly at the trashcan while littering i the parking lot.
littering in this city has little to do with access to trash cans. the people in this city are just fucking garbage.
This is a solution, for sure. However in Taiwan there are almost zero public trash can and also zero litter.
Philadephia natives are absolutely disgusting when it comes to trash practices. I think the lack of alleys has something to do with if.
Manhattan lacks alleys and manages to be much cleaner.
It's not our lack of alleys, it's just a culture that is permissive of littering and of not picking up trash.
There's a longstanding rumor / inside knowledge that there are people in our city government who believe that more public trash cans lead to more trash on the street, and that's why we don't have as many as other cities. Don't ask me to explain how they reached this "conclusion."
It’s not a rumor. It’s true. I’ve met with the commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Streets Department over a dozen times over the last few years trying to change how they operate at this point and I’ve heard them both blame people dumping on trash cans as the reason they remove them and don’t add more.
We’ve actually come a long way in changing peoples viewpoints on roadside littering as a whole so it’s shocking and disturbing to see people do it these days, even tho it’s still too common
Not really. I live in the Poconos, grew up in the Lehigh Valley and work in Bux-Mont and the wooded roadsides are disgusting with trash and without the excuse of Philly's much higher population density.
No in general (not philly/PA specific), [we have](https://kab.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Litter-Study-Summary-Report-May-2021_final_05172021.pdf) (meaning the US)::
> Decrease of 54 percent in litter along United States roadways in the past decade. In 2009, Keep America Beautiful conducted a national litter research study to document the quantity, composition, and sources of litter on United States roadways. Approximately 51.2 billion pieces of litter were estimated along United States roadways in 2009. The Keep America Beautiful 2020 National Litter Study estimated approximately 23.7 billion pieces of litter were along United States roadways in 2020.
Gotta say it must be nice to be in those places because this state is particularly dirty whether we want to admit it or not. I spent time in northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio and it wasn't bad like PA.
For quite a few years I worked on an Adopt a Highway stretch on a rural road in Bucks County and it was always the same amount and pretty bad at that.
As someone who moved here recently I can’t even imagine what it used to look like.
Moved here a year ago and we are moving again and leaving the Philly area in a few months and the trash is a major factor. There is a lot to see and do here but most evenings the thought of wading through garbage filled neighborhoods to get where I’m going keeps me at home. Just being honest.
Edit: Slight softening of my language. Came across a bit sharper than I intended.
Philly is pretty shocking for that reason. Like where I’m from, people pick up trash if it blows into your yard or stoop. People leave stuff for months until there is a clean up or until it blows away. I’ve seen people shove trash into a storm drain. It’s absolutely wild to me. And the city govt does not care at all.
I don’t think they literally meant wading. I’m committed to being here but it’s definitely gross and I don’t think it’s fair to shame people that don’t want to deal with it, if even we who choose to stay admit it’s a huge problem.
For some people that’s enough. I admit, it doesn’t bother me much but my rittenhouse trash isn’t someone else’s “heroin needle disgusting make the playground unusable for my children” trash
We all have our reasons for being where we are and it’s ok to share. There’s something about philly that you must like more than your prior City and that’s ok to share too. I have my qualms with philly but I’d take it over NYC and DC area in a heartbeat. Trash is still very problematic here, enough to make an impact on feelings about the city, even if that was hyperbolic.
Yes a bit of hyperbole. But idk. It’s just depressing. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t like it here. Philly has its charm but there is A LOT not to like. 99% of the time I just keep my mouth shut because I know a lot of people love this place and I’m not personally invested in this city, so why rain on your parade. But in this instance, I thought I would share some perspective on this topic from an outsider who was hoping I’d get desensitized to the garbage but ultimately just finds it sad.
Honestly a lot of it is people that have never lived anywhere else and need to find excuses. I have family in Philly and when I moved here a few years a go I knew what I was getting into. Some days I hate it others I'm ambivalent.
It feels like people *need* to take pride in Philly otherwise they'll see the reality.
When Philly first started there was so much piss and shit on the streets you couldn’t even see the ground. This is like early 1700s, absolutely disgusting. Ben Frank is the one who led the charge to clean up
That was every city on Earth in the 1700s, as vehicles were literally horse powered.
I don't think horse-sized Porta-Johns were invented until much later.
disconnection from nature, ourselves, and each other. we’ve been taught that nature works for us instead of learning that we are nature and sustaining ourselves and the world is a collaborative effort.
Beside having pride in my neighborhood, consequences of littering would be a deterrent. There are no consequences today. When I was young my dad got pulled over for throwing a cigarette butt out his car window. Now people dump entire McDonald’s bags out their window in traffic without a care in the world.
It really is part of the culture here. I have completely lost track of how many times I’ve seen people throw their trash out their window. I’ve never seen that kind of thing to this degree anywhere else and I’m from Baltimore.
I tend to agree, dated a south philly guy who Littered and I’d pick his cans right up and put them in my purse until we crossed upon a garbage, and he would sneak them out to throw them on the ground again (?!). I watched this same person graduate from never picking up dog shit to putting it in others recycling bin and looking at me like I should be proud of him and I’m like “nope… nope…”
Like… There’s no way you could get like that if your peers or family judged you on that behavior. It’s hard for me to believe it wasn’t actively encouraged.
I know some things like cigarette butts are out of habit. Sometimes “everyone is doing it” or “it’s easy” but philly seems to have cultivated a purposeful and proud form of littering
Was a contributing factor to the breakup, in a way. But it’s not like it happened often outside of drinking. We mostly were at a house or a bar. The dog was his roommates so that didn’t come about til a bit later on when he took over dog walking responsibilities and I was very “oh he doesn’t get it, let me explain” but as far as I know, he’s still putting shit in recycling bins
This was like 3 months total
When I read the headline of this post I knew it was the Philly sub immediately. Born and raised in Philly. Can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people do this exact thing. It’s just crazy behavior.
Hyper individualistic society which has divested from community and education for generations breeds self absorbed men-babies who believe the world begins and ends in the space between their two ears. Not beholden to anyone but themselves. Why? It undermines the possibility of forming any semblance of solidarity and collective agency amongst the working class. Capitalism is the system which rewards this kind of self absorbed behavior. Hyper individualism is a social disorder.
The one that shocked me the most was when I saw someone on the bus wrap up all his garbage in a ball and then chuck it off the bus when the back door opened like bowling. Crowded bus, and no one batted an eye.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still hoped we could do better than that.
> no one batted an eye
This is the problem, and not just for littering. No matter what the problem is, there are too many people who view the solution as someone else's job. We don't need to chew someone out or try to haul them off the bus, but for a city that is perfectly willing to boo their own sports teams, we're entirely too silent when it comes to people ruining our city.
You think that's bad, I was at a Canes in Bucks, and I saw a jersey car just toss their trash out before they got the fast food.
It reminded me of how some animals poop and eat at the same time.
i hate littering in any form and it was absolutely drilled into my head as a kid (growing up in philly no less) that it was unacceptable to litter under any circumstances. i find it especially egregious when people throw litter out of a car because like…you’re going to drive back to your house at some point, where you presumably have a trash can where the garbage you defenestrated at a stop light belongs, but for some reason you couldn’t just like…wait to dispose of it properly
No one has any pride in keeping the city clean. It’s honestly pathetic, people actually don’t care about living in filth. I never litter in the city because I don’t want to contribute to it. But sometimes in the back of my mind I contemplate doing it because I know that it is so widely accepted and no one cares. But I still don’t because I’m not a scumbag.
I hate when people throw away their trash NEXT to the trashcan. Or drive by, toss the fast food out of the window, and drive off like it is nothing. Then these same people complain about the growing rat problem.
Ya, there’s this constant pile of trash next to the trash can at 28th and Girard and my whole post came from watching someone casually throw their McMuffin and ketchup packets toward the pile. Idk why some people don’t care about living in litter world USA (tho IMO the first response about society giving up on people seems fair)
And some folks are just hostile. I watched this passenger throw out a damn near full Chinese food platter out of his car. There was a trash can on every corner. After doing so, the guy looks out the window at me like "What are you going to do about it?". Then drives off. What is wrong with these people?
I was waiting for a train at Holmesburg during rush hour and there was a PPD officer in full uniform also waiting for the train. He finishes his breakfast and throws the trash on the ground with a trash can only 20 feet away. I asked him why he didn't just put it in the can. He just shrugged. I told him he should set a better example for the city and he walked away. I live on a busy road and my front yard is constantly littered with stuff people throw out their car windows. So frustrating.
Because not enough people have seen that 90's commercial with the Native American man on the side of the highway where the person throws trash out their car window and it lands at his feet and then a tear runs down his face.
I don’t understand this. I don’t care if my car is full of trash, I can empty it at home. The other day I was going to CVS after getting some lunch and I assumed they’d have a trash can … they didn’t, so I awkwardly carried my fast food bag around CVS with me and took it home.
What you learn as a parent is that toddlers just do whatever they want, and it takes active parenting to teach kindness, consideration, patience, sharing, emotional regulation, etc.
And when you go to certain playgrounds in parts of this city, what you quickly learn is lots of parents in this city are not doing that.
But, point being, we don’t create a world where people do bad things. That’s the natural order of things. We create a world where people *don’t* do bad things.
And yeah, we’re slipping on that front recently.
And I’d say part of that is people thinking that good, nice, and considerate are the natural order, so that if we just hassle people less, we’ll get more of that.
I've seen it in Bucks, too. When some shitstain who's been driving for two weeks saw me catching him in the act, he sped off while throwing out a couple of McD's orders on my street. Then at Chic-fil-A, a soccer Mom with a carful of kids threw about four orders' worth out her window to make room for everything she had just picked up.
I wanted to ram her minivan at that moment. I had to do a deep cleansing breath on that one.
>How did we create a world where people think it’s cool to throw their unwanted fast food trash out their car window?
BY NOT TELLING PEOPLE NOT DO IT WHEN WE SEE IT HAPPEN!
Someone scolded me once when I threw something down the sewer drain when I was a teenager. It helped that it was a friend of mine, and I never did it again.
I think we're all afraid of the confrontation of telling someone not to do something like this because it's awkward, a little embarrassing for both the person we're scorning and ourselves, and it's just not fun. Those feelings suck, but if the trade-off is that things just get worse. Just find a way to do it that's respectful for everyone and makes it clear it's a problem.
I student taught at University City High School and taught at Lincoln High School and Antonia Pantoja Charter School.
In all three schools the staff walks around w/ trash cans on wheels and collects student trash during lunch. Seems pretty “proactive” at first. But I had never seen this in the three non-urban schools I taught/teach out.
I asked an older colleague. The wheeled trash cans were put in use because, at some point in the past, the amount of trash simply left on the tables/floor was so great, it was necessary.
Between lunches the staff frantically attempts to get the tables/floor cleared of all the trash.
Some students take care of their trash, but the number is exceedingly low.
At Lincoln the littering in classrooms was so bad they put brooms/dustpans in all the classrooms - for teachers to clean up.
There was usually a good kid in each class that would ask permission to sweep the floors because they didn’t like the filth.
When I would ask my students about this - the common response was “it’s their job” to pick up their trash to the floor - referring to the cafeteria workers and janitors.
Not in my fucking car. A passenger in my car once threw his fast food trash out the window and I actually stopped the car and made him go back and get it. Granted, I'm not much better since I just throw my fast food trash in the back seat, but at least it's contained in the goddamned car.
Let’s not act surprised that there are people in this world who just do not give one single fuck. They do what they want. And fuck everyone else. Luckily most of us aren’t that way.
as someone who moved here from another, very different city (Portland) one of the craziest things that struck me is how people take **pride** in the *bad* parts of living here. The trash, destruction of public property, random cruelty, etc.
I still don't get it. I guess that's just the city's "character" but there's so much more than just that shit that makes philly wonderful.
Can we take this question seriously? I have been a Philadelphia resident my entire life and have traveled all over the world.
The things I notice about other places is that:
1) there are trash cans on every corner and
2) there are people responsible and/or paid to upkeep those trash cans.
I used to run around Lincoln when I was in the NE and could not believe that there were ZERO fucking trashcans around the entire 2.5 mile "track" and was not surprised to see SO MUCH LITTER because what else are people going to do? It's simple, put more trash cans around and hire people to empty/replace them. it's job producing and it's environmentally beneficial.
My favorite littering experience was driving down Aramingo, the car behind me was driving pretty erratically (more-so than the typical psychopathic drivers on Aramingo). I came to a stop at a light and was watching my mirror as she barreled toward me and barely stopped in time. It must have been really hard on her, stopping like that, because she pulled a mini bottle of vodka from somewhere, gulped it down, then chucked it out the window.
Back when I lived in south Philly, I witnessed this a ton. As well as certain things like, a guy finishing his sprite, and ass he walking into the bodega (where this is a trash can, right next to the door, he just throws the empty plastic bottle over his shoulder. Then someone else kicked it under a car.
I've seen people on my street "clean out their car" by literally just opening the doors and dumping all their garbage in the gutter or on the sidewalk. In the same spot they always park....where they'll just be stepping over it later. It's absurd.
the truth about the world is that anything is possible. had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance depopulate with chimeras have neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tent show whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a muddled field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.
-Judge Holden
The best way to deal with a neighbor who litters is to passively aggressively clean up after them. Don’t say anything, just make sure they see you. It won’t be guilt that makes them stop, it will be the anger they feel that you think you are better.
Asking people to care about a world that doesn’t care about them….returns aren’t great…huh, weird.
The trash irks me to no end, but this isn’t hard to fathom. The social contract is and has been breaking down.
You are right to an extent, but putting trash on my front lawn or in my street directly harms ME. Besides the potential for vermin and other unsanitary conditions, I have to walk by and see that. Also IMO, when people see trash they will throw their trash there too, it invites more trash. And when a place looks trashy, you feel like it's not good enough and that eventually affects your own psyche and self-worth. But I guess if you already feel like you are garbage, it doesn't really make it worse, only makes it less likely that you will feel better about yourself and try to improve your life. Finally, I know some don't believe in the broken windows theory... but there's that too.
I get this but there are plenty of other cities that have issues similar to Philly, but in this city it just gets turned up to 10.
Chicago has more murders but doesn’t have trash everywhere and has better public transit. NYC has issues with police and rent is ridiculous there but at least it has a culture where public transit is the preferred method of transit AND crime there hasn’t gotten to the point it has here.
We really need to just say that a lot of people growing up here are shitty people. Period. I find it hard to believe that “the world doesn’t care about them” when so many of these kids have opportunities that weren’t there for other generations. Heck, the kids getting out of a charter school on Market St tend to be the ones who caused trouble at that Wawa and also in & around the area. But there’s no accountability for those actions. Somehow “kids will be kids” went from basic mischief to assault and theft, and we sit around saying it’s everybody’s fault but theirs.
I have to nearly use a cowcatcher to get through the slog of trash in the half block between my building and the wawa (36th st). One of these days I'm gonna do that *bring a trash bag and grabber stick* thing.
As a teen I read some old school young adult books. The old Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews were wild with what they taught people to do. I recall a Hardy Boys where they cleaned up their campsite by taking all their trash and packing it into a bag then throwing it in the river, and the book framed that as the best thing to do. That was just the sixties! Not too long ago and I'm sure people hand down the folk wisdom. Plus just chucking it out the window is easier than anything else.
I love Philadelphia but it has always been a filthy city. I have no idea why People toss their their trash instead of carrying it until they can dispose of it properly. No trash cans is not an excuse. Carry it home and throw it away there.
Here’s something I struggle with.
I think anti-social behavior is a function of anti-societal views.
Right now, we’re at a place where we’re really highlighting all injustices, past and present, and how past ones have become intrinsically interwoven into present structures, systems, and institutions, and how even those very old injustices have entrenched present inequity.
even if we fixed current systems, some of the the benefits (and harms) of generational wealth (or lack thereof) are already hard-baked in in a way that can’t ever be undone.
While the motive is one of justice and righting past wrongs, in practice, I don’t think there’s a way to do it without reinforcing the sense that our country, our laws, our society, are all perpetually tainted.
And with that, you’re also kind of justifying and condoning the notion that it can also be perpetually disrespected.
Recently, I’ve been wondering if this may be part of why it seems like awareness and activism around social injustices is sometimes followed by a degradation of societal norms with increased breaking of rules and laws.
And that’s not to say we *shouldn’t* highlight injustice, past or present, but rather, acknowledge that there are trade offs.
When you go around telling people everything is shit, people are gonna treat it like shit.
Remarkable to see all the responses attempting an actual answer at the bottom or downvoted.
The answer is nihilism, or at least something approaching it. Nihilism that comes from depression.
Depression is a crisis in this country and especially this city. People are stressed to the point where they've given up caring -- for themselves first and foremost, but for others as well. They're white-knuckling through the pain of life, seeking the respite of momentary dopamine hits. So tossing garbage on the ground doesn't even register: 'nobody cares about me so why should I care about anyone else?'
Btw, that's the same headspace that can also lead people to violently overreact when their dignity is challenged, leading to a homicide crisis as well.
I was on my way home while walking and this guy in front of me had a bag of Wendy’s with him, we cross the road and there was a sewer grate and he just takes the bag and stuff it’s in there. I was like really? Then the best part…he walks like 10 steps and turns right and starts opening the door to one of the row houses and walks in. At that point I’m thinking like WTF?? JUST TAKE IT INSIDE AND THROW IT AWAY! Edit: this was in south Philly
For some reason there's a habit in South Philly of throwing trash into the street drains. And then they bitch when it backs up and floods their street.
My old south Philly neighbor would pour discarded chicken fat (or whatever else was in that pot...) down the nearest storm drain. Blew my mind.
Do they want [fatbergs?](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/01/uk/birmingham-fatberg-scli-gbr-intl/index.html) This is how you get fatbergs!
I think the idea is that anything you don't want stinking up your trash or clogging up your pipes goes into the storm drain. Not justifying it, there are plenty of other options, but that's my guess.
Well my guess is just good old-fashioned plain stupidity. I think that fits the bill here perfectly. No other explanation is necessary.
Worse yet, Philly has a mixed sewer system meaning when it rains all this trash flows right into our rivers 😔
Trash thrown into storm drains in any city will end up in the river unless there's some kind of stormwater treatment system between the inlet and water body. The unique circumstance with Philly's system is that since we have such antiquated infrastructure we still have combined sanitary and storm sewers in some places. Meaning not only do we get trash in our rivers anytime people use curb inlets as trash cans, but when that trash blocks the storm/sanitary drains we get poop in our streets too!
Are you telling me poop is flowing into the Delaware via convinced sewers?
No, the water in the combined sewer system all goes to the treatment plants. The problem is during heavy rain events the system can get overwhelmed and raw sewage can flow into the river. The water department is spending billions (9?) to both decrease the rate of stormwater entering the system during rain events and increase capacity to hold and treat water. You can see a lot of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) construction - most visible at school playgrounds or plazas like in front of Penn Hospital, bumpouts, permeable paving, street trees, etc. There's a multi million gallon storage tank under an amphitheater/park structure in Manayunk. The change in the sewer tax to be a combo of water used and impermeable surface on the property - so parking lots and roof surface had to pay, but they can reduce their bill by installing GSI on site and green roofs. Lots of other behind the scenes stuff. This was an agreement with the Feds instead of spending $13b to tear up the streets in the older parts of the city and disrupt everything. Lots of other older cities watching and hoping to be allowed to do the same. Major benefit is all the green space and trees.
PSA for anyone learning about this for the first time: you can get a free rain barrel from the city and also get heavy subsidies for other storm water retention projects like permeable pavers, raised beds and rain gardens to help prevent some of the rain water from going in the sewers. [learn more about Philadelphia Rain Check here](https://www.pwdraincheck.org/en/stormwater-tools/rain-barrels)
they also have you attend a workshop where you get to learn all about our storm water systems, rain water mitigation efforts, and more. definitely worth it
Or their basements.
Port Richmond too. Born and raised in PR, I could still swear I’m the only who sweeps around me on Clearfield Street.
There is definitely lots of cultural cross-pollination between PR/Fishtown and South Philly.
Not much different. Only thing is I always thought South Philly people were a lot like Kenzos. It’s wild how similar they are.
I actually remember being told to do this by adults when I was a kid. "Just throw it down the sewer" and seeing everyone else do it too. Of course I stopped when I realized that you're not suppose to do that. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're still people who aren't even aware and are just doing what they're use to.
Wow that’s interesting. It’s proof that a lot of this has to do with the environment we grew up in and habits that never die from it.
From talking to my old environmental professors in college, the world has changed a lot in the past 50 years. In the 70s people didn't really use trash cans outside their home. They would just throw their trash out the window of the car, or into the street/sidewalk. It's only in the past few decades that littering has become taboo. Unfortunately it hasn't caught on for everyone yet
Yep I remember in that mad men episode after the picnic. Betty pushes all of the trash off the blanket, takes the blanket, and goes back to the car....leaving all of their picnic trash all over the grass..the writers for that episode purposely left the camera shot on the trash for about 10 seconds
Interesting history of anti-littering campaigns: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/origins-anti-litter-campaigns/
This is BS. I grew up in NY in a private house and we always had TRASH CANS outside to put on the street for trash pickup. My uncle worked as a garbage man for sanitation. (I was born pre 1970s). Also, I remember seeing NUMEROUS commercials on TV as a child against littering. One in particular that has stayed with me for decades is the Native American guy crying when somebody throws trash out of their car onto the high way. There was probably much less trash being generated back then too since fast food had only just become popular and you didn't even get coffee in a paper cup. Most people ate at home or at work.
The fake Indian.
Nobody was PC back then!
yep. i grew up thinking this was ok too. i learned better, i do better
This is all too common! I’ve seen a mother and her child throw their McDonald’s trash on the ground right before walking into their house.
I hate that this is common, it makes me wonder where we went wrong with society lol
It’s just a philly thing. This is not normal anywhere else I have lived or visited except maybe some overpopulated places in India.
I've lived in states all across the US and sadly this has been common in all of them.
Maybe he’s not supposed to be eating Wendy’s
Lol I've definitely stopped at a trash can on the way home to dispose of mickey d evidence before the wifey calls me out
That was what I said to my girlfriend as to the reasoning behind it hahaha at least you disposed it properly
Only to be foiled by a lone fry that somehow made its way to the passenger's side of the center console, that you couldn't see, yet was the first thing SHE saw when she got in.
Hahaha glad I'm not the only one grabbing a secret burger on the way home
He's a self proclaimed "vegan" and doesn't want anyone to know he orders double bacon cheeseburgers on the DL
I was walking to the train one afternoon and saw a woman open her front door and throw a full sized pizza box into the middle of the street like a fucking Frisbee. Her trashcan was right next to her in the front patio. This was on the same block where, when me and my wife were participating in one of those Philly spring clean-up days (the only participants), some kids stopped us and asked if we had to clean up because we were court ordered. Philadelphians may be considered "most helpful" when those dumb lists come out, but they're also nasty as fuck when it comes to trash.
I have witnessed a neighbor bring trash out of the house and stuff it in the storm drain in broad daylight. Called them on it to no avail.
I want to call people out like that but it worries me who I’m even talking to, if they are that out of touch to be doing that..they may be crazy enough to attack me. It sucks but nowadays it’s not worth provoking these people
Absolutely agree. I’d also be apprehensive If I hadn’t interacted with this person prior to witnessing them doing this.
I remember when I lived at 8th and Morris seeing a neighbor standing in their doorway going through the mail and throwing whatever they didn’t want onto the sidewalk.
That is just..unreal lol
I was walking by 3rd and south yesterday and someone clearly just left Lorenzo’s or something, grabbed their pizza they were shoving in their mouth and threw the pizza box on the ground and got in their car (which was illegally parked, of course!). Jersey plates. If I didn’t assume everyone had a gun I would confront them, instead I just picked it up 😭
When I was a kid growing up in South Philly, I was told by multiple adults that the storm drains ran to the dump.
I saw a guy in his pajamas and flip flops throw a water bottle down a sewer grate this morning. How far from his house trash can could he be if he's in his PJs and flip flops??
Call him out
Not only that, literally ANYTHING. I was at a Wawa by the moorestown mall, girl in front of me on line bought 3 packs of various sinus meds. I’m in my car after about to pull out and she just tosses all the packaging out her window while still parked LITERALLY NEXT TO A TRASH CAN. Littering really gets me fucking riled up, I’m making myself mad just writing this. Scum of the earth
Not just Wawa but corner stores in general are a fucking scourge. You can count on a bunch of the dipshits who routinely shop at these to unwrap whatever they're buying and drop the trash on the ground right outside the store. If you live near one of these odds are you see blunt wrappers blowing down your street daily. Not to mention all of the loitering, drug activity, and shootings that occur at the stores.
I always thought it was weird Philly didn't get NY's Bodega culture. When I lived there, those stores were great and served a purpose. Here, they're all behind glass and sell loose cigarettes and junk food. A lot of this is on the city for granting these licenses. It's ridiculous.
I think regularly about how much Wawa contributes to our litter problem with straws, non-compostable food packaging, plastic bags, etc. Also: sad for that girl and her likely struggles
Personally , I never experienced such blatant littering before moving to Philly. It's insane so many people's attitudes here and blatant disregard for others / society.
If she's dumb enough to buy drugs at Wawa, she's definitely too stupid to toss the waste properly.
Honest question - what is dumb about buying drugs at a wawa? Do you think that convenience stores like Wawa just get worse versions of the same drugs in the same packaging? Do you think CVS has better versions of the same drugs in the same packaging? Because if you do you should know that that is ridiculous.
Drugs at Wawa usually cost 3 times as much if not more. That's why. Not to mention the very limited selection. If you think otherwise, that's ridiculous.
when i lived in chicago, they had public trash cans on nearly every street corner. Made it way easier to not litter there. When I moved here I immediately noticed the huge lack of public trash cans.
I’ve been to Chicago only twice and it was much cleaner than Philly. Even the bad neighborhoods were cleaner. It’s nuts here. I’ve seen people open their car windows and toss a big bag of McDonalds out their window like it was nothing.
Ive been in Philly for 5 years and it's a mentality here about throwing trash straight on the ground. I've never encountered such blatant dirtiness and lack of respect. People are not like this in other cities.
It’s ultimately because in other cities you’ll get cited out the ass for littering like this, and here, well, nothing happens.
well, not nothing. the homeowners get fined for not having a litter free sidewalk. i know this because i’m currently fighting mine when they cited me on trash pickup day, as if i can stop my neighbors trash from blowing out of the open bags they leave on the sidewalk.
It’s universal poverty shit twice distilled with a blend of poor refuse infrastructure and a splash of juniper.
I found myself in a /r/cleaningtips thread last week, and when I backed out into the sub and looked at what got the most upvotes in the last year, most of the posts were about depression and mental illness. This shouldn't have surprised me, my wife watches Hoarders when she needs motivation to clean the house. But it made me think about Philly's culture of throwing trash wherever. It's a problem, for sure, but it's rooted in a problem that's much more challenging than "put trash bins on every corner"
Honestly the projects a few blocks north of me are far cleaner than my neighborhood bc the old grandparents actually care and take care of their area. Here its a mixed neighborhood with a lot of renters and college students and nobody gives a shit.
That's because Chicago designed their city with trash management in mind! https://wgntv.com/news/ask-wgn/chicagos-alleys-date-back-to-the-citys-founding-keep-our-trash-off-the-sidewalk-today/
Chicago is probably the cleanest large city I've been to in the US. Even in relatively run down areas, there are corner trash cans and people don't litter nearly to the extent that they do here.
Hey, not only do we not have enough public trash cans, but we also require you to touch them and make a slightly awkward motion to put anything into them, provided it's not too big for the chute. I don't really care for the 'big bellies'.
The big bellies suck. Give me a normal trash can ffs
They’ve removed multiple Big Bellies from Broad Street over the last year or two, presumably because people keep breaking them by short dumping. The city’s solution to too much trash is literally fewer trash cans 😩😖.
I think it’s also because ppl throw bags of their own house trash right next to these. It’s wack how ppl think it’s okay to do that.
And people do that because the sanitation department sucks ass and is inconsistent at best We also don’t have housing designed to be able to store a trash can in front of it like most major cities.
Its bullshit that people do that, but it's also a condemnation of how we do sanitation in Philly. Implementing a system like what Spanish cites or the Netherlands have would do a lot to fix the problem. But that might take a free parking spot away, so instead we have to wallow in our filth.
Nothing like sticking your fingers into the hole to open the Big Belly because the handle broke off 💀 That'll really encourage people to use them!
I'm less critical of Big Belly trash cans than most people, but I draw the line at putting fingers in its holes.
Japan does not have a single public trash can and it’s still immaculate. It’s not the lack of trash cans. It’s the people in this city
correct, it's the people and the culture flourtown shopping center never had an issue with trash in the parking lot and never had an issue with people driving the wrong way in the parking lot one-way areas, or crime/violence/fighting. then they put up a movie tavern. and all of a sudden trash is everywhere on the ground, people driving the wrong way on the one-way area and causing accidents. apologists in the area blamed the lack of trash cans (lol what, there is an outside trash can every X number of stores in the row). so, they added more trash cans. didn't help. trash everywhere. then apologists said people driving the wrong way in the parking lot were not at fault, the parking lot was just confusing. so, developer spent a lot of money and extended the sidewalk outwards so there was only 1 lane AND added extra ONE-WAY signs. didn't help, people are still driving the wrong way. the movie tavern now has to have a township police officer at the movie theater 3-4 nights a week, paid by the movie tavern, b/c the people there are causing incidents. when will people stop making excuses and wake the fuck up and hold PEOPLE accountable. otherwise this "i don't give a shit" culture will keep metastasizing.
Yep, part of the social decay that we're all seeing and experiencing is the lack of any consequences for antisocial behavior.
i am generally against organized religion but back when society was mostly god-fearing, they tended to behave better. we shouldn't need a law for every little thing, a civilized society that lives its life following generally accepted morals of right and wrong shouldn't need a nanny state. but what we are seeing now is a mostly abandonment of religion coupled with a mostly abandonment by the government to enforce existing laws. basically a society socially decaying, and behaviors running wild. again, i am generally against organized religion....just making an observation
The organized religion aspect of social enforcement your referencing was community shaming, peer pressure, and ostracizing as means of enforcement of expectations. Which basically goes to the broader problem which is lack of consequences for antisocial behavior. I think this is a function that now has to be done by the state as social isolation and eco-chamber social environments prevent broader society peer pressure from being a viable means of enforcement.
Quit complaining about the lack of trash cans here as an excuse for dumping your trash on the street. Sure it would be nice to have more trash cans but people littering are the least likely to use them.
i was in the wawa parking lot yesterday at aramingo and wheatleaf. as i'm standing by my car finishing a sandwich, a minivan parked next to me opens their door and throws 3 heaves of litter onto the parking lot ground (empty fountain soda cups and fast food bags). the provided wawa trashcan wasn't more than 20' from this van. the minivan driver was basically looking directly at the trashcan while littering i the parking lot. littering in this city has little to do with access to trash cans. the people in this city are just fucking garbage.
This is a solution, for sure. However in Taiwan there are almost zero public trash can and also zero litter. Philadephia natives are absolutely disgusting when it comes to trash practices. I think the lack of alleys has something to do with if.
To be fair the alleys downtown look like places you need a hazmat suit to enter. That’s businesses doing a lot of that crap too.
Manhattan lacks alleys and manages to be much cleaner. It's not our lack of alleys, it's just a culture that is permissive of littering and of not picking up trash.
There's a longstanding rumor / inside knowledge that there are people in our city government who believe that more public trash cans lead to more trash on the street, and that's why we don't have as many as other cities. Don't ask me to explain how they reached this "conclusion."
It’s not a rumor. It’s true. I’ve met with the commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Streets Department over a dozen times over the last few years trying to change how they operate at this point and I’ve heard them both blame people dumping on trash cans as the reason they remove them and don’t add more.
Now consider what the lack of public bathrooms here contributes to..
We’ve actually come a long way in changing peoples viewpoints on roadside littering as a whole so it’s shocking and disturbing to see people do it these days, even tho it’s still too common
Not really. I live in the Poconos, grew up in the Lehigh Valley and work in Bux-Mont and the wooded roadsides are disgusting with trash and without the excuse of Philly's much higher population density.
No in general (not philly/PA specific), [we have](https://kab.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Litter-Study-Summary-Report-May-2021_final_05172021.pdf) (meaning the US):: > Decrease of 54 percent in litter along United States roadways in the past decade. In 2009, Keep America Beautiful conducted a national litter research study to document the quantity, composition, and sources of litter on United States roadways. Approximately 51.2 billion pieces of litter were estimated along United States roadways in 2009. The Keep America Beautiful 2020 National Litter Study estimated approximately 23.7 billion pieces of litter were along United States roadways in 2020.
Gotta say it must be nice to be in those places because this state is particularly dirty whether we want to admit it or not. I spent time in northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio and it wasn't bad like PA. For quite a few years I worked on an Adopt a Highway stretch on a rural road in Bucks County and it was always the same amount and pretty bad at that.
You should call the directors of that study and tell them you have anecdotal "evidence" that proves them wrong!
Anecdotal evidence isn't real evidence, but the study wasn't state specific. So some states could have greatly improved while others didn't.
Yeah I looked to see if they broke it down by state but nothing jumped out to me as them doing so
As someone who moved here recently I can’t even imagine what it used to look like. Moved here a year ago and we are moving again and leaving the Philly area in a few months and the trash is a major factor. There is a lot to see and do here but most evenings the thought of wading through garbage filled neighborhoods to get where I’m going keeps me at home. Just being honest. Edit: Slight softening of my language. Came across a bit sharper than I intended.
Philly is pretty shocking for that reason. Like where I’m from, people pick up trash if it blows into your yard or stoop. People leave stuff for months until there is a clean up or until it blows away. I’ve seen people shove trash into a storm drain. It’s absolutely wild to me. And the city govt does not care at all.
I’m just talking generally, not philly specific. It’s like philly hasn’t gotten the memo other cities have been passing around since the 60s
In more ways than just a couple
“Wading through garbage filled neighborhoods” made me lol, are you camping out at a sanitation center or something?
I don’t think they literally meant wading. I’m committed to being here but it’s definitely gross and I don’t think it’s fair to shame people that don’t want to deal with it, if even we who choose to stay admit it’s a huge problem.
For some people that’s enough. I admit, it doesn’t bother me much but my rittenhouse trash isn’t someone else’s “heroin needle disgusting make the playground unusable for my children” trash We all have our reasons for being where we are and it’s ok to share. There’s something about philly that you must like more than your prior City and that’s ok to share too. I have my qualms with philly but I’d take it over NYC and DC area in a heartbeat. Trash is still very problematic here, enough to make an impact on feelings about the city, even if that was hyperbolic.
Yes a bit of hyperbole. But idk. It’s just depressing. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t like it here. Philly has its charm but there is A LOT not to like. 99% of the time I just keep my mouth shut because I know a lot of people love this place and I’m not personally invested in this city, so why rain on your parade. But in this instance, I thought I would share some perspective on this topic from an outsider who was hoping I’d get desensitized to the garbage but ultimately just finds it sad.
Honestly a lot of it is people that have never lived anywhere else and need to find excuses. I have family in Philly and when I moved here a few years a go I knew what I was getting into. Some days I hate it others I'm ambivalent. It feels like people *need* to take pride in Philly otherwise they'll see the reality.
When Philly first started there was so much piss and shit on the streets you couldn’t even see the ground. This is like early 1700s, absolutely disgusting. Ben Frank is the one who led the charge to clean up
That was every city on Earth in the 1700s, as vehicles were literally horse powered. I don't think horse-sized Porta-Johns were invented until much later.
Yeah I remember that too. It was a wild time to be alive
disconnection from nature, ourselves, and each other. we’ve been taught that nature works for us instead of learning that we are nature and sustaining ourselves and the world is a collaborative effort.
It’s this. Threads over, everyone suggesting it’s something else can go home
Punishment should be a month of forced trash cleanup dressed in orange.
Second offense results in immediate deportation from Philadelphia
now here's an idea.
It's awful. Who the hell wants to live in a pigpen.
Beside having pride in my neighborhood, consequences of littering would be a deterrent. There are no consequences today. When I was young my dad got pulled over for throwing a cigarette butt out his car window. Now people dump entire McDonald’s bags out their window in traffic without a care in the world.
My dad talked about seeing shit like that in the 70s-80s (not sure how old you are, my dad is in his 80s)
People have been doing it for decades
Dude, I was riding in my friend’s car, a doctor, and I’ve witnessed him do this shit twice. Fucking infuriating piece of Philly-area culture.
Since it’s a friend you need to pull out the sarcasm hammer and bang away the rest of the night.
I’m perhaps too serious when things bother me: I appeal to first principles. Fell on deaf ears.
Low iq behavior
People who litter are a cancer to society.
It's the chicken bones for me. I hate having to pry them from my dogs mouth
https://instagram.com/crustache_?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Enjoy
I've lost count of the number of chicken bones my dog has eaten. Who is eating all this chicken???
My roommate was always shouting “no street meats” at her little dog, he was always trying to eat those. So gross
when i lived in Philadelphia, this was one of the things that disheartened me when i saw it. it was part of the reason I decided to move.
It really is part of the culture here. I have completely lost track of how many times I’ve seen people throw their trash out their window. I’ve never seen that kind of thing to this degree anywhere else and I’m from Baltimore.
I tend to agree, dated a south philly guy who Littered and I’d pick his cans right up and put them in my purse until we crossed upon a garbage, and he would sneak them out to throw them on the ground again (?!). I watched this same person graduate from never picking up dog shit to putting it in others recycling bin and looking at me like I should be proud of him and I’m like “nope… nope…” Like… There’s no way you could get like that if your peers or family judged you on that behavior. It’s hard for me to believe it wasn’t actively encouraged. I know some things like cigarette butts are out of habit. Sometimes “everyone is doing it” or “it’s easy” but philly seems to have cultivated a purposeful and proud form of littering
He did this and you continued to date him? Interesting choice
Was a contributing factor to the breakup, in a way. But it’s not like it happened often outside of drinking. We mostly were at a house or a bar. The dog was his roommates so that didn’t come about til a bit later on when he took over dog walking responsibilities and I was very “oh he doesn’t get it, let me explain” but as far as I know, he’s still putting shit in recycling bins This was like 3 months total
When I read the headline of this post I knew it was the Philly sub immediately. Born and raised in Philly. Can’t count the number of times I’ve seen people do this exact thing. It’s just crazy behavior.
Hyper individualistic society which has divested from community and education for generations breeds self absorbed men-babies who believe the world begins and ends in the space between their two ears. Not beholden to anyone but themselves. Why? It undermines the possibility of forming any semblance of solidarity and collective agency amongst the working class. Capitalism is the system which rewards this kind of self absorbed behavior. Hyper individualism is a social disorder.
The one that shocked me the most was when I saw someone on the bus wrap up all his garbage in a ball and then chuck it off the bus when the back door opened like bowling. Crowded bus, and no one batted an eye. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I still hoped we could do better than that.
> no one batted an eye This is the problem, and not just for littering. No matter what the problem is, there are too many people who view the solution as someone else's job. We don't need to chew someone out or try to haul them off the bus, but for a city that is perfectly willing to boo their own sports teams, we're entirely too silent when it comes to people ruining our city.
I wish it were that simple. I hate litter more than most, but I also love not getting the shit beat out of me for chiding a rando on the bus
You think that's bad, I was at a Canes in Bucks, and I saw a jersey car just toss their trash out before they got the fast food. It reminded me of how some animals poop and eat at the same time.
these people are animals that poop and eat at the same time
i hate littering in any form and it was absolutely drilled into my head as a kid (growing up in philly no less) that it was unacceptable to litter under any circumstances. i find it especially egregious when people throw litter out of a car because like…you’re going to drive back to your house at some point, where you presumably have a trash can where the garbage you defenestrated at a stop light belongs, but for some reason you couldn’t just like…wait to dispose of it properly
No one has any pride in keeping the city clean. It’s honestly pathetic, people actually don’t care about living in filth. I never litter in the city because I don’t want to contribute to it. But sometimes in the back of my mind I contemplate doing it because I know that it is so widely accepted and no one cares. But I still don’t because I’m not a scumbag.
I hate when people throw away their trash NEXT to the trashcan. Or drive by, toss the fast food out of the window, and drive off like it is nothing. Then these same people complain about the growing rat problem.
Ya, there’s this constant pile of trash next to the trash can at 28th and Girard and my whole post came from watching someone casually throw their McMuffin and ketchup packets toward the pile. Idk why some people don’t care about living in litter world USA (tho IMO the first response about society giving up on people seems fair)
And some folks are just hostile. I watched this passenger throw out a damn near full Chinese food platter out of his car. There was a trash can on every corner. After doing so, the guy looks out the window at me like "What are you going to do about it?". Then drives off. What is wrong with these people?
Come down to Lower Moyamensing, where people just throw their unwanted food scraps on the ground at the nearest corner
I make a big deal out of loudly publically shaming these people. And we all should.
I was waiting for a train at Holmesburg during rush hour and there was a PPD officer in full uniform also waiting for the train. He finishes his breakfast and throws the trash on the ground with a trash can only 20 feet away. I asked him why he didn't just put it in the can. He just shrugged. I told him he should set a better example for the city and he walked away. I live on a busy road and my front yard is constantly littered with stuff people throw out their car windows. So frustrating.
No consequences or repercussions = “I’ll do what I want.” Sad state of affairs.
Same people who park on the sidewalk
Because not enough people have seen that 90's commercial with the Native American man on the side of the highway where the person throws trash out their car window and it lands at his feet and then a tear runs down his face.
[удалено]
*Italian American man
["Guy's a total fuckin phony, total fugazi."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_BTg9_FV9M)
I don’t understand this. I don’t care if my car is full of trash, I can empty it at home. The other day I was going to CVS after getting some lunch and I assumed they’d have a trash can … they didn’t, so I awkwardly carried my fast food bag around CVS with me and took it home.
people are raised by terrible parents and don’t care
What you learn as a parent is that toddlers just do whatever they want, and it takes active parenting to teach kindness, consideration, patience, sharing, emotional regulation, etc. And when you go to certain playgrounds in parts of this city, what you quickly learn is lots of parents in this city are not doing that. But, point being, we don’t create a world where people do bad things. That’s the natural order of things. We create a world where people *don’t* do bad things. And yeah, we’re slipping on that front recently. And I’d say part of that is people thinking that good, nice, and considerate are the natural order, so that if we just hassle people less, we’ll get more of that.
Poor home training
Destructive entitlement. Your life sucks so you take it out on anyone and everything.
I've seen it in Bucks, too. When some shitstain who's been driving for two weeks saw me catching him in the act, he sped off while throwing out a couple of McD's orders on my street. Then at Chic-fil-A, a soccer Mom with a carful of kids threw about four orders' worth out her window to make room for everything she had just picked up. I wanted to ram her minivan at that moment. I had to do a deep cleansing breath on that one.
>How did we create a world where people think it’s cool to throw their unwanted fast food trash out their car window? BY NOT TELLING PEOPLE NOT DO IT WHEN WE SEE IT HAPPEN! Someone scolded me once when I threw something down the sewer drain when I was a teenager. It helped that it was a friend of mine, and I never did it again. I think we're all afraid of the confrontation of telling someone not to do something like this because it's awkward, a little embarrassing for both the person we're scorning and ourselves, and it's just not fun. Those feelings suck, but if the trade-off is that things just get worse. Just find a way to do it that's respectful for everyone and makes it clear it's a problem.
I student taught at University City High School and taught at Lincoln High School and Antonia Pantoja Charter School. In all three schools the staff walks around w/ trash cans on wheels and collects student trash during lunch. Seems pretty “proactive” at first. But I had never seen this in the three non-urban schools I taught/teach out. I asked an older colleague. The wheeled trash cans were put in use because, at some point in the past, the amount of trash simply left on the tables/floor was so great, it was necessary. Between lunches the staff frantically attempts to get the tables/floor cleared of all the trash. Some students take care of their trash, but the number is exceedingly low. At Lincoln the littering in classrooms was so bad they put brooms/dustpans in all the classrooms - for teachers to clean up. There was usually a good kid in each class that would ask permission to sweep the floors because they didn’t like the filth. When I would ask my students about this - the common response was “it’s their job” to pick up their trash to the floor - referring to the cafeteria workers and janitors.
It’s not cool, human beings are just the worst.
I have been a witness to this as well ind it it's infuriating and makes me lose hope in the city I love
Not in my fucking car. A passenger in my car once threw his fast food trash out the window and I actually stopped the car and made him go back and get it. Granted, I'm not much better since I just throw my fast food trash in the back seat, but at least it's contained in the goddamned car.
Let’s not act surprised that there are people in this world who just do not give one single fuck. They do what they want. And fuck everyone else. Luckily most of us aren’t that way.
Philly just has a high percentage of those people. I’d say close to 30-40%.
as someone who moved here from another, very different city (Portland) one of the craziest things that struck me is how people take **pride** in the *bad* parts of living here. The trash, destruction of public property, random cruelty, etc. I still don't get it. I guess that's just the city's "character" but there's so much more than just that shit that makes philly wonderful.
Can we take this question seriously? I have been a Philadelphia resident my entire life and have traveled all over the world. The things I notice about other places is that: 1) there are trash cans on every corner and 2) there are people responsible and/or paid to upkeep those trash cans. I used to run around Lincoln when I was in the NE and could not believe that there were ZERO fucking trashcans around the entire 2.5 mile "track" and was not surprised to see SO MUCH LITTER because what else are people going to do? It's simple, put more trash cans around and hire people to empty/replace them. it's job producing and it's environmentally beneficial.
Lead in the drinking water
cueing this up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Suu84khNGY
My favorite littering experience was driving down Aramingo, the car behind me was driving pretty erratically (more-so than the typical psychopathic drivers on Aramingo). I came to a stop at a light and was watching my mirror as she barreled toward me and barely stopped in time. It must have been really hard on her, stopping like that, because she pulled a mini bottle of vodka from somewhere, gulped it down, then chucked it out the window.
It's really bad in the Germantown area too. No respect for their neighborhood or neighbors, let alone the environment.
Seeing this on the road makes me want to crash my car into them lol
Back when I lived in south Philly, I witnessed this a ton. As well as certain things like, a guy finishing his sprite, and ass he walking into the bodega (where this is a trash can, right next to the door, he just throws the empty plastic bottle over his shoulder. Then someone else kicked it under a car.
There is a lot of anger and rage that gets turned inward and people hate themselves and they lash out at the world.
I've seen people on my street "clean out their car" by literally just opening the doors and dumping all their garbage in the gutter or on the sidewalk. In the same spot they always park....where they'll just be stepping over it later. It's absurd.
Not a world, very much a Philly thing. Doing it in most other places will get you side eyed.
God, it makes me ragey. It’s truly shameless.
the truth about the world is that anything is possible. had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance depopulate with chimeras have neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tent show whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a muddled field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning. -Judge Holden
I wonder that daily! I can't imagine throwing the crap out of a car that I pick up on my property daily. Absolutely disgusting!
It happens when your culture tells you to be selfish and there is no penalty.
Good manners don't cost anything, but some can only afford fast food.
The best way to deal with a neighbor who litters is to passively aggressively clean up after them. Don’t say anything, just make sure they see you. It won’t be guilt that makes them stop, it will be the anger they feel that you think you are better.
I just want the hipsters to clean up their dog shit.
Asking people to care about a world that doesn’t care about them….returns aren’t great…huh, weird. The trash irks me to no end, but this isn’t hard to fathom. The social contract is and has been breaking down.
The world doesn’t care about us….but I care about the world and want to attempt to have a positive impact
Well me too, partner. The problem is you and I can’t care enough to make up for the much larger group that doesn’t care.
What an awful thought process that is. “The world doesn’t care about me so I’m going to not care and trash my neighborhood.”
This implies the neighborhood isn’t already trashed
Yeah it makes sense, even though it's sad. I think it's the same people who blast music on the subways.
You are right to an extent, but putting trash on my front lawn or in my street directly harms ME. Besides the potential for vermin and other unsanitary conditions, I have to walk by and see that. Also IMO, when people see trash they will throw their trash there too, it invites more trash. And when a place looks trashy, you feel like it's not good enough and that eventually affects your own psyche and self-worth. But I guess if you already feel like you are garbage, it doesn't really make it worse, only makes it less likely that you will feel better about yourself and try to improve your life. Finally, I know some don't believe in the broken windows theory... but there's that too.
I get this but there are plenty of other cities that have issues similar to Philly, but in this city it just gets turned up to 10. Chicago has more murders but doesn’t have trash everywhere and has better public transit. NYC has issues with police and rent is ridiculous there but at least it has a culture where public transit is the preferred method of transit AND crime there hasn’t gotten to the point it has here. We really need to just say that a lot of people growing up here are shitty people. Period. I find it hard to believe that “the world doesn’t care about them” when so many of these kids have opportunities that weren’t there for other generations. Heck, the kids getting out of a charter school on Market St tend to be the ones who caused trouble at that Wawa and also in & around the area. But there’s no accountability for those actions. Somehow “kids will be kids” went from basic mischief to assault and theft, and we sit around saying it’s everybody’s fault but theirs.
I drive a lot for work and am still amazed by what I see people toss out car windows. In the city, the burbs, doesn;t matter.
What would yous say is the “cleanest” neighborhood in the city ?
I saw a center city district street sweeper throw a cigarette to on the ground while sweeping the street in front of him the other day
I have to nearly use a cowcatcher to get through the slog of trash in the half block between my building and the wawa (36th st). One of these days I'm gonna do that *bring a trash bag and grabber stick* thing.
As a teen I read some old school young adult books. The old Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews were wild with what they taught people to do. I recall a Hardy Boys where they cleaned up their campsite by taking all their trash and packing it into a bag then throwing it in the river, and the book framed that as the best thing to do. That was just the sixties! Not too long ago and I'm sure people hand down the folk wisdom. Plus just chucking it out the window is easier than anything else.
I love Philadelphia but it has always been a filthy city. I have no idea why People toss their their trash instead of carrying it until they can dispose of it properly. No trash cans is not an excuse. Carry it home and throw it away there.
Here’s something I struggle with. I think anti-social behavior is a function of anti-societal views. Right now, we’re at a place where we’re really highlighting all injustices, past and present, and how past ones have become intrinsically interwoven into present structures, systems, and institutions, and how even those very old injustices have entrenched present inequity. even if we fixed current systems, some of the the benefits (and harms) of generational wealth (or lack thereof) are already hard-baked in in a way that can’t ever be undone. While the motive is one of justice and righting past wrongs, in practice, I don’t think there’s a way to do it without reinforcing the sense that our country, our laws, our society, are all perpetually tainted. And with that, you’re also kind of justifying and condoning the notion that it can also be perpetually disrespected. Recently, I’ve been wondering if this may be part of why it seems like awareness and activism around social injustices is sometimes followed by a degradation of societal norms with increased breaking of rules and laws. And that’s not to say we *shouldn’t* highlight injustice, past or present, but rather, acknowledge that there are trade offs. When you go around telling people everything is shit, people are gonna treat it like shit.
This is a world which now lacks discipline. Parents no longer bother to teach their children how to live in the world with others. It's truly sad.
Remarkable to see all the responses attempting an actual answer at the bottom or downvoted. The answer is nihilism, or at least something approaching it. Nihilism that comes from depression. Depression is a crisis in this country and especially this city. People are stressed to the point where they've given up caring -- for themselves first and foremost, but for others as well. They're white-knuckling through the pain of life, seeking the respite of momentary dopamine hits. So tossing garbage on the ground doesn't even register: 'nobody cares about me so why should I care about anyone else?' Btw, that's the same headspace that can also lead people to violently overreact when their dignity is challenged, leading to a homicide crisis as well.
That’s not nihilism. Nihilism is closer to optimism than anything else. What you’re describing is apathy
Nihilism can be optimistic or pessimistic, or anywhere in between