Learnings from Litter: 25 Takeaways from 25,000 Pieces of Trash

Recently, my wife Andrea and I participated in two worldwide litter campaigns using an app called Litterati. We rolled up our sleeves, put on our gloves and enthusiastically joined the ranks of thousands of people around the globe removing litter from our communities.

While hardly glamorous, we became committed devotees to these campaigns, picking up over 25,000 pieces of litter throughout Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado. In addition to litter, we also picked up a few unexpected learnings along the way.

1. There is a serious litter problem. My wife and I picked up 25,000 pieces and wondered if we even made a dent in the problem. What happened to the Texas litter campaign called “Don’t Mess with Texas”?

2. Be prepared. If you decide to accept this mission (cue Mission Impossible soundtrack), wear long pants, heavy gloves, long sleeves, and boots. There will be sharp objects like mown aluminum cans and broken glass. Plan to get dirty, really really dirty. Wash your hands THOROUGHLY afterwards – 2 or 3 cycles. We got over the “Ewwwww factor” after the first 1,000 pieces.

3. We all have our limits. The humility of picking up trash only goes so far, and that’s ok. For some, the rule is no cigarette butts (we will cover that topic later). We drew a line on dirty diapers (baby and adult) and “biodegradable” plastic bags of dog poop.

4. Picking up trash is humbling. A lot of people look at you like you are performing some sort of court‐ ordered community service. But it can also be heartwarming, like the time a mother and three young children joined us in a restaurant parking lot to help us pick up trash ‐ without even asking us why we were doing it.

5. Picking up trash is exhausting. In a high trash area, this is aerobics with gloves on. I’ve trained and run five marathons over the last five years and embarrassingly, have never lost much weight. Picking up trash, I lost 15 pounds and I strengthened my back (results vary by participant). Of course, always consult a healthcare professional before beginning any exercise program, including trash pick‐up. If you experience faintness, dizziness, pain or shortness of breath at any time while picking up trash, consult your physician. And above all, never take medical advice from a Ph.D. chemist…

6. Litter is often recyclable. However, only if picked up quickly enough to be clean. As litter stays in the wild, most of it becomes filthy and increasingly degraded. Plastic, aluminum and paper degrades, I promise you. Glass does not (we will revisit glass in #15).

7. Boost your numbers in high volume areas. If you want big numbers like we did, picking up trash around a grocery store brings greater returns than a stroll in your typical suburban neighborhood (don’t forget our points in topic #5).

 

8. People drink a lot of alcohol. They really do. And apparently, while driving. Beer cans. Vodka bottles. Single‐serve whisky bottles (“nips”). Wine in plastic bottles. I’ve encountered so many Fireball Cinnamon Whisky nips that I feel I should try this apparently popular drink myself, if only to unlock its apparent allure that beckons droves of people to consume it (and then toss the container on the ground).

9. People throw out perfectly good, unopened bottles and cans of beer. Really, they do. We found 10

bottles and three cans of beer, all completely unopened. Unrelated: If you were one of the kind folks who recently purchased beer from the account Litter_to_Lager on Facebook Marketplace, thank you. ͧͨͩͪ

10. Aluminum is valuable. About 40% through our efforts, my wife recommended an experiment to see how much aluminum we could pick up and calculate its worth. I wasn’t crazy about the idea ‐ but she was helping me ‐ so I felt compelled to oblige. And I’m glad I did. We picked up over 125 lbs. of aluminum cans and found they were valued at 50 cents per pound at a local metals recycler. Since it took us approximately one hour per 500 pieces of litter, this amounted to a return on our effort of $0.92/hr. I think I will keep my day job for now.

11. So many butts, such little time. Cigarette butts are everywhere, especially at traffic lights and in parking lots. If I could get a nickel for every cigarette butt we picked up, I COULD quit my day job.

12. COVID‐19 had litter consequences. We did this campaign in the midst of COVID. Hiking around a grocery store (refer to #7), you will find a plethora of store coupons, receipts, newspaper fliers, pennies and of course grocery bags. With COVID, this was compounded by an abundant selection of disinfecting wipes, masks and latex gloves. Grocery stores should require customers to ask for receipts. While masks are largely gone today, the other items remain.

13. Some people say thank you. These people are different from the ones who assume you’re completing mandated community service.

14. Rural roads are golden, but not in a good way. On rural roads, there is an absolute abundance of soda and beer cans, beer bottles, mini‐wine bottles, vodka bottles and single‐serve liquor bottles, in addition to fast food bags. Just be careful to stay well away from the road. And remember that on rural roads, no one yells thank you – they just honk.

15. Glass weighs a lot. When carrying a trash bag of bottles, cans and paper, you soon realize how heavy a couple dozen glass bottles are compared to alternatives.

16. Lawn mowers turn a single piece of trash into a dozen. Or more. If you pick up litter on mowed medians, you will encounter itty bitty fragmented aluminum cans and indistinguishable paper items. But they are very visible, so you pick them up. The good news ‐ your litter totals improve ‐ and so does your back strength.

17. Gained new insights on deviant behavior. We found a bag of “Whip‐Its” in a grocery store parking lot, plus multiple whipped cream spray cans, suggesting the consumers were not interested in dessert. Even more interestingly, we found multiple packages of empty diarrhea meds grouped together. If your litter observations seem strange, you can Google them, but I wouldn’t recommend it...

18. You find money! Not a lot, but it’s fun when you do. Small change. Soggy $1 bills. And one eventful night (on a rural road), we found a total of four $100 bills! It’s true. Reflecting on the potential for a criminal conviction requiring true community service, we took a closer look at home ‐ and were disappointed to learn they were excellent quality counterfeits. Acquiring an ability to identify counterfeit bills is not a skillset we set out to achieve, yet here we are. Large denomination bills with missing water marks and identical serial numbers should not be used.

19. We found ample trash, even where there were ample trash bins. Why, people? Why? But good news Litterati fans – this is an opportunity. Empty your bulging trash bags of non‐recyclables into these underutilized receptacles and forge ahead!

20. Convenience stores are your friend. But, it’s sort of like that friend your mom wouldn’t let you play with because they were a bad influence. If you need a numbers boost, convenience stores are your jam. Cigarette butts. Paper. Drink lids. TONS of straws. And don’t forget, empty your bulging trash bags of non‐recyclables and forge ahead!

21. Sadly, we did not recycle everything. It’s true. Some trash was too dirty and degraded. Sometimes, it was just too time‐consuming to sort through everything. But the last straw was discovering that all recycling in my area must be disposed of using the official recycling bin, accessible by the truck’s mechanical arm. On the day we put our bin out with a couple of bags of recyclables, we later saw the bin had been emptied, but the bags remained. Yet another learning…

22. We need to create value. This won’t sit well with everyone, but I will say it anyway. We learned we could earn 50 cents per pound of aluminum cans. So, guess what we picked up first when searching for litter? If people saw value in litter, they may also be inspired to do this even if through capitalism. When I was a kid, we paid a $.05 deposit on all cans and bottles and the litter problem for these items disappeared. If we somehow earned even one cent for every piece of litter we picked up, that would have totaled $250 – an even better return than the $65 we got from aluminum cans. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but you get the idea.

23. The elusive litter picker’s “high.” Some marathon runners are known to experience a runner’s high through the release of hormones called endorphins (or so I am told). We have come home tired and sore from picking up litter, but have yet to experience the elusive litter picker’s high. We have now surpassed 55,000 pieces seeking this experience. Plus, I need to lose those last 10 pounds.

24. You can’t un‐see it. This is the best news of all. Once you participate in a campaign like this, you notice litter everywhere you go.  You just do. The closer you look, the more there is. Everyone should experience this. To be honest, I’m glad this litter campaign is over. I need a break. I think I’m going to go back to doing something easier, like marathon training.

25. We made a difference. I’m thankful for the organizers of litter campaigns. I really am. We made an impact. And we gained perspective we never had before. I don’t have all the answers to our litter problem, but it’s opened my eyes to this issue in a whole new way. You can’t un‐see litter. But you can pick it up. Please do.