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If you remember, two years ago Gavin announced some program to fight litter in the streets by calling on residents to mobilize and clean the streets. Somewhere Gavin envisioned hordes of fresh-faced San Franciscans picking up random potato chip bags, coffee containers, and hypodermic needles while frolicking down Polk Street arm-in-arm singing John Denver songs. Well, as anybody could tell just by wandering the streets, the streets are still dirty as hell.
So today, Gavin introduced a new campaign to stop littering. This time, the campaign will be mainly educational as that appears to be the problem. We don't understand why people wouldn't think littering is bad, but we were kids in the early '70's and had a bunch of long-haired hippie teachers tell us that littering is bad, mmmmkay, in between the playing of Judy Collins' songs. Just walking to our car this morning, we saw a bag of chips lying on the street and it occured to us that as there was a garbage can a few feet away, why didn't somebody just dump it into the garbage can since the idea behind garbage can is that's where you put garbage.
Gavin's earlier campaign actually did work in some ways in that the amount of citations given out went up and the city picked up more trash than ever. There was even the establishement of "neighborhood ambassadors" whose job it was to sweep up streets and to alert the authorities whenever they saw an issue. It's just that as hard as the city tried, it wasn't enough.
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Littering in the city floors me.
I think a big part of the problem is cultural. How else to explain what I saw this morning: a woman who disposed of her tamale corn husk and a flier on the sidewalk ... in front of me and her child's school right after she dropped the kid off.
She was walking and talking with her other mom friends and wasn't subtle about the littering. I couldn't imagine my mom or my friends moms doing that in front of my childhood school, or at all.
This Mission elementary school recently had a high profile campaign asking the locals not to relieve themselves, do drugs, or litter in proximity to the school. I guess that message didn't reach the parents.
"If every kid did it, can't you see what a icky mess it would be?????
Clearly the hippies need to take back Sesame St. or something.
I just want to know who you have to f**k to get street cleaning on Telegraph Hill. I'm half a block from Garfield Elementary. Between the kids and the drooling tourists, our street is sometimes ankle deep in trash.
I was in the Mission recently and saw fliers protesting additional street cleaning. Hey, send some of that to our neighborhood!
Although my solution to the kids is cursing out their parents for raising them to behave like animals with no respect for anyone, including themselves. Oddly enough, it does tend to work. They stay the hell off my street after that, at any rate.
Yeah, the Mission is the worst when it comes to littering. We have two street cleaning days as it is, and you can hardly tell! I once saw a middle-schooler walking down the street with his older siblings, slowly dropping pages of a weekly paper onto the ground one by one. Arghh!!
And is Telegraph Hill one of those neighborhoods that have elected NOT to have street cleaning? There are some neighborhoods who vote against it so they won't have to deal with the parking headaches...
As far as the mission goes, I do wonder if it is a cultural thing. Most people in the Mission do not hesitate to litter, piss, take a dump at any old place they see fit. Seems to be consistent with the places I have visited in Mexico.
I am sure Chris "the incomptent" Daly will do his best to block this campaign.
So, SFist Jon, did you pick up the bag of chips you saw on the way to your car? You said the garbage can was only a few feet away, so I imagine it wouldn't have been to much trouble.
It's true, way too many people litter. We can try to educate people, but we all have a responsibility to do what we can to make the city look nicer. Yes, that means that once in awhile we should clean up after someone else.
I certainly can confirm that there are many people in the Mission who simply do not want to have clean streets. Cleanliness just doesn't interest them. No amount of education will help -- to them, it is as unreasonable as demanding, for example, that everyone start wearing green socks.
But I do hesitate to call that "cultural." It's very very easy to blame dirty Mexicans, but let's try to resist that urge in the absence of any actual data.
I'm a high school teacher, and I can't tell you how many times my students are shocked when I ask them to pick up their trash. They invariably reply, "Isn't that the janitor's job?" It makes me a little ill, and it takes a long time to reteach the lessons about respecting shared space and materials that their elementary school teachers tried to instill.
Try this in a cheery voice, in a tone that says "you almost lost that valuable thing, good thing I alerted you":
"Oops-- you dropped your _______!"
Fari enough Catrine, you made a good point and you got me (and I don't mean to come off as snarky or mean). No, I didn't pick it up. But here's the thing-- I think a lot of people's attitudes (mine included) is what's one potato chip bag in the midst of the general dirtiness of the Mission? There was a coffee cup there and some newspapers and a whole bunch of other smaller things on that street. Do I pick up one thing or do I pick up all of it? The right response would be pick up all of it, but where do you draw the line?
I guess it's things like this that gives credence to the broken window theory. If a street is clean, one piece of litter is a big deal. If the street is a dirty mess, what's one potato chip bag?
I make a point of picking up at least one piece of litter and dumping it in the nearest trash can every time I'm out on the street. Not too much effort on my part to find something that needs picking up. More of a problem usually finding a trash can, so the usual routine is to spot an upcoming trash can and pick up a piece of litter to toss in it.
Rather than grumble, do something. If everyone did something, the problem would take care of itself.
(People do look at me weird, mind you ...)
I am just seeing if this works. Once thaqt is confirmed I will let my venom flow freely.