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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

#81

Post by elenaguberman »

brenden2 wrote: post #65
booleandilemma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've noticed this too. If you have a dog, you also learn very quickly just how many discarded chicken bones exist throughout the city (hint: it's more than you want it to be).

I completely agree. I clean up with Emin and rubbish, and this project was initially inspired because I have a corgi vacuum cleaner who eats everything on the ground. Once I started scanning, it's impossible to unsee the litter. So we started cleaning and recording it!

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

#82

Post by deftnerd »

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…

Can you give us more information on the "Rubbish Beam", pictures, tech details, and why it's so expensive? You say on a request form that you're hoping to make it cheaper, but what's the biggest block to making that happen?

Is it just a standard grabber but with a cellphone holder and some kind of bluetooth trigger embedded in the "grabbing handle" that triggers the phone to take a picture?

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

#83

Post by Rychard »

brenden2 wrote: post #65
booleandilemma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've noticed this too. If you have a dog, you also learn very quickly just how many discarded chicken bones exist throughout the city (hint: it's more than you want it to be).

Discarded chicken wings have become a bit of a trope in Atlanta.

https://www.instagram.com/wingsofatl/

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

#84

Post by mikekchar »

autoexec wrote: post #63
tdeck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same reason there are so few in Tokyo: https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/05/trash-cans-japan-garbag...

I'd heard this for ages, but Tokyo in my experience had a lot of places to leave your trash. Not the giant trash cans I see stateside, but small bins next to many of the vending machines which are everywhere. The streets were pretty clear of litter though. The lack of litter was still impressive.

You have to have a recycling bin next to drink machines. These bins are only for bottles and cans, though. You shouldn't put trash in them. Convenience stores are required to have trash bins, so that's the easiest place to dispose of something if you need to.

I don't think this has anything to do with terrorism, though. There is a culture of take your trash home with you. Even at work I was not allowed to use the trash bin for anything except work trash. Trash from my lunch, etc, I had to take home.

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

#85

Post by mikekchar »

lxe wrote: post #50
paggle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really use Japan as a model for any place outside of Japan. You can't make San Francisco's residents behave like Tokyo's any more than you can make Ruth Bader Ginsburg the left tackle for the Dallas Cowboys.

Both are big cities with people in them. Not sure why one can't learn from the other and vice-versa.

Japan is culturally very different. Every Japanese person is taught at school how to act in society. Cultural values are instilled there. In the west we believe that parents should have the last say on how to bring up children. In Japan, teachers have the last say. Teachers go to students' homes to make sure it is an acceptable environment for the student. If it is not, parents are required to take classes on how to be better parents. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen teachers calling in parents and yelling at them for hours until the parents, sobbing, promise to improve. One of my students was caught smoking and since the father was a smoker he was called into school. The vice principal blamed the father for the student's behaviour and insisted that the father never again smoke at home. The father agreed (and you know the home room teacher is going to go over to the house to make sure the agreement is kept).

That's why people don't litter here. For a test, I once left my change in the drink machine by the school -- a drink machine used by all the students. The change was still there 2 weeks later! I think the only reason it eventually was removed was because the company that restocked the machines took it. Probably only because they realised that it was an inconvenience for everyone having to sort out their correct change.

You just can't tell a city of millions of people to act like that ;-). It's a completely different culture and a completely different set of values.

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

#86

Post by exolymph »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #44
amelius wrote: post #12

Curious, did you also remove chewing gum from the streets? And is this in the "food" category? I would expect the numbers for food to be higher than for tobacco then.

Do people still chew gum?

I mean... yes? Did you think that people had stopped chewing gum?

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

#87

Post by fnord77 »

etrautmann wrote: post #70
hapless wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF makes NYC look like Disneyland.

having just moved from SF to NYC, I think the trash bags in NYC are much worse than the majority of SF. Union Square and the Tenderloin are another phenomenon entirely though with feces and urine everywhere. This appears to be less common in NYC.

I think SF gets that concentrated urine stench because it doesn't rain 2/3rds out of the year so the sidewalks never get cleansed.

NYC would stink just as bad if it didn't rain all summer. Maybe worse because of the higher population density.

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

#88

Post by felipemelivilu »

deftnerd wrote: post #82
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…

Can you give us more information on the "Rubbish Beam", pictures, tech details, and why it's so expensive? You say on a request form that you're hoping to make it cheaper, but what's the biggest block to making that happen? Is it just a standard grabber but with a cellphone holder and some kind of bluetooth trigger embedded in the "grabbing handle" that triggers the phone to take a picture?

Felipe here, I design and build the beams. Until now it was mostly an issue of scale as we refined the prototype. They took time to assemble and without large order price breaks on components the direct cost was high. We've invested time into a new version that is more scalable and will be ready soon.

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

#89

Post by toomanybeersies »

hanniabu wrote: post #32
mihok wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a reference, but I believe coffee cups are assumed to be recyclable even though actually, and in most part due to the polyethylene-lined inside, they are not.

And here I am thinking it was a wax lining. Why would you a plastic lining for something you put hot liquid in, which would cause leeching? (Not that was doesn't have issues, aka melting)

Not all plastic causes leeching, and as you said, wax melts which is definitely leeching.

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

#90

Post by toomanybeersies »

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?

Most smokers assume that filters are actually biodegradable (it is possible to buy biodegradable filters if you roll your own), when in fact they aren't.

I never chuck my butts on the ground, if there isn't a rubbish bin nearby, I'll either put the butt back in my packet, or just put it in my pocket. When I see friends tossing their butts I always have a go at them for littering, most just don't even realise what they're doing is wrong.

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