This post was submitted by Michael

On Mondays, Michael explores the world of environmentalism and its intersection with queer culture in the column It’s Easy Being Green, despite what Kermit says.

I mentioned in an earlier column that there are three major ways that the products we consume cause damage to the environment: production of products, consumption of products and disposal of products. Today, I’m going to rant about the urban litter problem for a bit, which is firmly nestled in our environmental damage spectrum between the consumption and disposal of products.

The majority of litter that I come across is food packaging. Small, single-serving packages cleverly designed to spotlight a product’s compelling aspects, highly engineered and air-tight to ensure freshness, shiny and colorful to catch the eye. If food manufacturers spent as much time thinking about product’s packaging after the product is consumed instead of before, we wouldn’t have a problem. However, packaging designers only think of two things: how to convince someone to purchase the product and then ensure that the product is good/fresh enough to be purchased again. Very rarely is the end of the packaging lifecycle considered when it’s designed.

My apartment building is located directly between our neighborhood CVS and a subsidized housing complex. The two blocks that separate those those two locations are constantly strewn with litter, and from my unscientific research, much of it comes from children living in the housing complex buying stuff at the CVS: candy bar wrappers, plastic shopping bags, soda cans and bottles. I once watched a little girl walking down the block from CVS reach into her shopping bag, pull out it’s only contents (a single pack of chewing gum), discard the bag right there on the sidewalk, unwrap the gum package and throw the packaging a few steps away from the bag, and then walk right into the housing complex. The best part is that there are two city-installed trash bins on the sidewalk between the two locations that, for all intents and purposes, might as well not exist.

Witnessing this sort of completely clueless behavior results in one of three reactions from me. The first is to simply shake my head and hope for a speedy end to our species. The second is to pick up the freshly discarded litter and throw it away. The third is to pick up said items, run up to the person who dropped them and say, politely, “Excuse me. You dropped this.” Amazingly, when I do the third, the confused litterbug usually responds equally politely, apologizing and taking the items from me and carrying them away.

Just yesterday I witnessed a woman, laden with Safeway shopping bags, take a break on my block by propping herself up against a window sill of the insurance company next to my building. She sweetened her walk home from the grocery store by reaching into her shopping bag and pulling out an ice cream sandwich, which she promptly unwrapped and, without thinking, discarded the packaging on the sidewalk 5 feet in front of her as she began to enjoy her sandwich. I took it upon myself to walk up to her and ask politely, “Pardon me. Would you mind if I threw this out for you?” She apologized for littering as I walked 20 steps away to a trash can to dispose of her garbage for her.

Litter is a very, very complex issue and culpability rests with many different parties, as do the potential solutions. One of the biggest and most sensitive issues involves who does the littering. In my experience, it us usually disenfranchised minorities who have the least respect for our urban spaces. And really, how can you blame them? Surely these people have a lot more to worry about than where their gum wrappers will end up. These people doubtlessly have little room in their hearts to take pride in their neighborhoods, as these spaces have been officially neglected and abandoned over the past century. Insipring civic pride in disenfranchized populations seems to be a very difficult task, as you’ll likely have to solve many of their other problems before they have the energy to care.  (Of course, in my mind, the little things can start adding up to bigger things, and I am a firm beliver in the “fixing broken windows” theory, as long as it’s a part of a larger strategy.)

However, the consumer is not the only entity responsible for urban litter.  They are just the end of a chain of consumption, every link of which has the opportunity to cut down on the litter problem.

Product producers should begin by making more environmentally friendly packaging.  All packaging should be 100% recyclable, 100% reusable, 100% bio-degradable, or a 100% mixture of the above.  No longer should manufacturers wrap products in materials intended for the landfill or city streets, sidewalks and gutters.

Purchase locations should also become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.  Drug and convenience stores should not provide plastic bags for purchases of only single items.   These stores should donate portions of their profits to local organizations that not only clean the streets and sidewalks daily, but do it visibly as they help to educate local residents of the hazzards of their bevavior.

I would love to see what would happen if every product or store logo on a package or bag was required to have a microchip embedded into it that, when scanned, would provide the equivalent of the UPC code data.  Large bags of litter could be cleaned up from our streets and scanned, with fines being sent to the proper parties.  Companies like McDonalds, Coca Cola, M&M/Mars, Frito-Lay, CVS, Safeway, Giant, etc., would receive montly bills that would go to pay for the cost of cleaning up after their patrons.  If the packaging and bags were pulled from environmentally sensitive areas, there would also be a per-item fine attached.  How would these companies react?  What sorts of efforts would they undertake to ensure their customers did the right thing with their refuse once there was an economic incentive attached?

What is the intersection between this aspect of environmentalism and queer community?   “The gays” have long been seen as urban pioneers, moving into disinvested neighborhoods and bringing new life to formerly blighted spaces.  This process is also known as gentrification and it carries with it all the positives and negatives of the term.  I would like to think that the improvement of urban spaces can help lift the spirits of residents and inspire civic pride, but sadly I fear the opposite occurs:  tension builds between the haves and the have-nots, which can lead to further disenfranchisement as the new neighbors flaunt their wealth and ignore the existing residents, creating new community instead of trying to participate in the one that already exists.

Superficially speaking, mainstream gay culture also involves a lot of drinking and party-going.  These activities result in drunken late-night snacks from convenience stores and fast food restaurants, and who know how concerned drunk people will be with the proper disposal of the packaging their hangover prevention foods come in.

Otherwise, I think we all share the responsibility of maintaining clean and safe streets and sidewalks, lakes and rivers.  I’m interested in hearing from you.  Please tell me how conscious you are of litter and product packaging by participating in this week’s environmental survey.

TNG Litter Survey.

Oh, and the polls are still open on last week’s Reproduction Survey, so check that out too.

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