How to change the mindset that littering is okay? (Knoxville: 2015, home)

[linnemj]

We moved to the Maryville area in July, 2015. We love this area and the people that we have met.

One thing that consistently bothers me is the amount of liter you see on the roadside. We moved 7 times in my career and Eastern Tennessee has the worst littering problem of anywhere we have lived. It makes me wonder how to change people's habits of throwing trash out the car window or leaving trash to blow out the bed of your truck. I don't see people dropping trash in parks or on greenways. People are also responsible when hiking on trails.

Is the problem heredity, upbringing, or educational? Any ideas on how to contribute to solving the problem?

[Serious Conversation]

Upbringing. Many families around here do not take care of their own property, so public land is pretty much anything goes.

[NJDevil]

Probably the best way is to educate children (in school) and then they go home and spread the word. It's very hard to change adult behavior, and they are more likely to listen to their kids than strangers or the government.

What I'd love to see are cleanup incentives. They have adopt-a-highway programs which are great, but it's volunteer. Even though this is the volunteer state, it's harder than you'd think to get people to come out and do things for free. Years ago when I heard Obama talking about free college in exchange for community service, I loved the idea, that sure is an incentive. Why can't a city government offer some free gift cards in exchange for cleaning up a neighborhood? The cleaner neighborhoods will attract more home buyers, so the gov't could get reimbursed from the realtors. They make enough money. LOL I'm just thinking out loud

[Beretta]

Originally Posted by linnemj

We moved to the Maryville area in July, 2015. We love this area and the people that we have met.

One thing that consistently bothers me is the amount of liter you see on the roadside. We moved 7 times in my career and Eastern Tennessee has the worst littering problem of anywhere we have lived. It makes me wonder how to change people's habits of throwing trash out the car window or leaving trash to blow out the bed of your truck. I don't see people dropping trash in parks or on greenways. People are also responsible when hiking on trails.

Is the problem heredity, upbringing, or educational? Any ideas on how to contribute to solving the problem?

Out of town visitors in my opinion.

[onetoughkitty]

In my travels across these lovely southern states, it seems it is the worst here but it may just be because I travel these roads every single day. Seriously, I think I see someone new across Pellissippi Highway every time I travel it but I don't recall all the trash I may have seen on my way to Nashville, Atlanta, Bristol, DC, Lexington, Charleston or Asheville but I am not doing those drives every day. In CA, our traffic people used to have a joke about the daily utility ladder in the road. It might be because you see something new every day but other states have had its share of boxes, clothing, maintenance supplies on their roads. At least I haven't run over a kayak here yet (true story).

[linnemj]

Originally Posted by Beretta

Out of town visitors in my opinion.

OP here.

Many of the roads I travel would not be used frequently by out of town visitors so the problem can't be solely blamed on them. Now I wonder if littering is discussed at any point in the educational system. It could be part of environmental science studies.

The problem could be worse but I see residents along roadsides out picking up liter on their property on a regular basis. I know many roads have been adopted for clean up so they get cleaned twice a year. A community wide effort every spring would be great and I would gladly volunteer for that.

I would love to be the judge in cases on littering. I could be very creative in my sentencing!

[weisgarber1]

Originally Posted by linnemj

We moved to the Maryville area in July, 2015. We love this area and the people that we have met.

One thing that consistently bothers me is the amount of liter you see on the roadside. We moved 7 times in my career and Eastern Tennessee has the worst littering problem of anywhere we have lived. It makes me wonder how to change people's habits of throwing trash out the car window or leaving trash to blow out the bed of your truck. I don't see people dropping trash in parks or on greenways. People are also responsible when hiking on trails.

Is the problem heredity, upbringing, or educational? Any ideas on how to contribute to solving the problem?

Education is only one facet of reducing litter and given the huge amount of litter that doesn't seem to appreciably diminish each year (anywhere in the world, in fact), education, arguably, isn't terribly effective. Back when Al Gore and Clinton were especially in the environmental protection mode in their administration, there were no efforts (that I'm aware of) to partner with the private sector in working to create more environmentally-friendly, biodegradable packaging for consumable products such as fast food (especially "wrappers"). There is a huge amount of fast-food generated trash that is tossed out of the car windows and which lies on the roadsides and elsewhere waiting to be picked up, and which won't biodegrade for several years. So, decreasing litter needs to be more than just having an annual or bi-annual cleanup, although that probably always will be necessary. Reducing litter meaningfully and measurably should be a combination of programs/ideas and pushing the packaging industry to work on biodegrables should be at the top of the list, imho. I recall walking around the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, when in Israel, and noticing all the trash lying on the rocks, especially plastic bottles, which can be recycled, and I was a bit surprized. I also noticed that in Southern Portugal in the Algarve, to mention just two places. So, litter and trash are a worldwide problem which, unfortunately, isn't going away anytime soon.

[Beretta]

I would suggest contacting the local school systems and the local politicians for anyone that wants to take action to see what is currently being done locally. This is the local Knoxville area so the OP may want to contact multiple systems and politicians.

We love our beautiful area and want it to stay beautiful. There are many local groups that participate in the "Adopt a Highway" too so this has been a problem for quite some time.

[Badbird2000]

I grew up in Florida. I was in a Scout troop for over 23 years, we participated in the local Adopt-A-Road program. We cleaned the 2 mile stretch every 3 months. When we started, it was bad, but after a couple of trips, we would struggle to fill a couple of bags (a good problem to have). I was also a cyclist, I rode probably 100 miles a week in the summer time. All throughout the county.. I never saw the amount of trash I see along the roads here. I have started a one-man campaign walking the road 1/2 mile from my subdivision to Emory Road in Corryton. I never fail to fill at least one large bag in those walks. I have approached several neighbors about adopting the road for clean up, but no one follows through. When they see me out, they honk and wave, but keep driving. It's frustrating and disappointing, but I won't stop picking up trash.

[JOinGA]

Originally Posted by Badbird2000

I grew up in Florida. I was in a Scout troop for over 23 years, we participated in the local Adopt-A-Road program. We cleaned the 2 mile stretch every 3 months. When we started, it was bad, but after a couple of trips, we would struggle to fill a couple of bags (a good problem to have). I was also a cyclist, I rode probably 100 miles a week in the summer time. All throughout the county.. I never saw the amount of trash I see along the roads here. I have started a one-man campaign walking the road 1/2 mile from my subdivision to Emory Road in Corryton. I never fail to fill at least one large bag in those walks. I have approached several neighbors about adopting the road for clean up, but no one follows through. When they see me out, they honk and wave, but keep driving. It's frustrating and disappointing, but I won't stop picking up trash.

Congratulations on your efforts! When traveling through Knoxville, I have seen people throw fast food bags out of vehicle windows on the interstate more than once. It was pretty shocking. I live in metro Atlanta and I can't recall seeing any littering that blatant. When I was a kid, there was a TV cartoon commercial with a catchy little tune "Please, please don't be a litterbug, cause every litter bit hurts." It has stuck in my head for 50 years. I do not litter, not ever.