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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

#11

Post by dboreham »

lozaning wrote: post #10
olliej wrote: post #3

I’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.

One data point: litter bins (public trash cans) were all removed from Central London decades ago because terrorists began planting bombs in them. Afaik they have been restored in recent years but the cultural memory of having to pack your trash home remains.

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#13

Post by vcdimension »

EminIsrafil wrote: post #2

It’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…

Have you seen this project: http://thecrowbox.com/ and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8lZ4I-UamM Maybe we could train squirrels too..

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#14

Post by booleandilemma »

brenden2 wrote: post #7
irrational wrote: post #4

This 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).

And nowadays in NYC I’m seeing discarded plastic vaping things, which is even worse, imo.

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#15

Post by gdulli »

irrational wrote: post #4

This 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?

In my city, cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets seem to be the things that people don't feel any particular need to dispose of properly.

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#16

Post by codeddesign »

irrational wrote: post #4

This 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?

It’s a little subjective though. 800 Starbucks cups is a much larger issue compared to 1500 cigarette butts (for example)

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#17

Post by lxe »

olliej wrote: post #3

I’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

Tokyo has almost no public trashcans. And the crowds are significantly larger than SF, and it's significantly cleaner in Tokyo (at least from what I've seen).

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#18

Post by diogenescynic »

Love this article because it's something that has also intrigued me. I used to live in the Inner Richmond and someone would always dump a big pile of trash near the corner of my block. Finally I got sick of this and rummaged through the trash and found some bank statements and RX bottles (all with the same name and address). I called the person and sent a photo with their trash and told them to find somewhere else to drop their garbage or I'd be reporting them. Seemed to address the problem (or realistically shifted it to someone else's property).

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#19

Post by woah »

Reedx wrote: post #5
irrational wrote: post #4

This 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.

They are returning the gifts of the tobacco plant to the Earth

Re: We picked up, tracked, and analyzed 130k pieces of litter in SF

#20

Post by jazzyjackson »

codeddesign wrote: post #16
irrational wrote: post #4

This 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?

It’s a little subjective though. 800 Starbucks cups is a much larger issue compared to 1500 cigarette butts (for example)

Is it tho? Coffee cups are made of paper. Cigarette butts are a plastic foam embedded with a multitude of carcinogens.
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