We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
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Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#2It’s inspiring to see that picking up litter consistently had a big impact on a neighborhood. We were also surprised to see the strong effect the California Camp Fires had on litter. Hope you enjoy!
Background: My friends, Elena and Felipe, and I have been picking up litter 3x per week on Polk Street for year now. We logged all the litter we picked up to see what we can find. After a year picking up we decided to see what we can learn from the data and we wrote an article with the results.
We used the https://www.rubbish.love, which I helped program, to track all the items.
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#3I’d be interested in seeing the correlation with the existence (or not) of trashcans. Huge swathes of commercial/retail areas in SF have no/few trashcans, and I would assume that there’s a limit to how long people will carry trash/empty containers before just dropping them on the ground
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#4This was a fascinating read. I'm surprised tobacco is the number 1 litter. I rarely see people smoking anymore where I live, so I would assume it would not be a top contributor to litter. Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#5This was a fascinating read. I'm surprised tobacco is the number 1 litter. I rarely see people smoking anymore where I live, so I would assume it would not be a top contributor to litter. Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?
> Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?
No, but for some reason people think throwing cigarette butts on the ground and out of car windows isn't littering.
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#6This was a fascinating read. I'm surprised tobacco is the number 1 litter. I rarely see people smoking anymore where I live, so I would assume it would not be a top contributor to litter. Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?
I think it's not so much that it's very prevalent, I think it's that most smokers don't carry their butts away with them if there's not a trash can 30 millimeters from their hands.
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#7This was a fascinating read. I'm surprised tobacco is the number 1 litter. I rarely see people smoking anymore where I live, so I would assume it would not be a top contributor to litter. Is smoking still very prevalent in San Fransisco?
I have a dog, and when we're walking around I always notice all the cigarette butts on the ground (because my dog tries to eat everything off the ground so I have to watch). It doesn't surprise me that so much litter is just tobacco products.
(Also I live in NYC these days, but I used to live in SF).
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#8I’d be interested in seeing the correlation with the existence (or not) of trashcans. Huge swathes of commercial/retail areas in SF have no/few trashcans, and I would assume that there’s a limit to how long people will carry trash/empty containers before just dropping them on the ground
I've noticed a similar pattern in my neighbourhood. No rubbish bins and plenty of littering. When I approached the city council about this, I was told they wouldn't install rubbish bins because -- I kid you not -- that would encourage people to put their waste in the bins...
It's not uncommon to see less well-off people walk around town, putting a little bit of rubbish into any bin they pass. It's risky, because fines for dumping household waste in public bins are steep.
Disposing of household waste is quite expensive here, only waste in "official" bin bags is collected, and they're over 1eur/ piece. It's a contributing factor to poverty, and, in my opinion, to fly tipping. After all, why pay for expensive bin bags when you can just chuck your litter anywhere with impunity?
Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#9I’d be interested in seeing the correlation with the existence (or not) of trashcans. Huge swathes of commercial/retail areas in SF have no/few trashcans, and I would assume that there’s a limit to how long people will carry trash/empty containers before just dropping them on the ground
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Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF
#10I’d be interested in seeing the correlation with the existence (or not) of trashcans. Huge swathes of commercial/retail areas in SF have no/few trashcans, and I would assume that there’s a limit to how long people will carry trash/empty containers before just dropping them on the ground
One of the things that I've noticed traveling internationally for work is how much this differs from country to country. You'll be hard pressed to find a public trash can anywhere in Suwoon, South Korea. Meanwhile there's a trashcan on every single street corner in Düsseldorf, Germany. Neither city had much trash.