Maine litter. Like another helping of litter?
No thank you, it’s carry in, carry out in Maine. I was taught to pick up after myself.
But now that we’re on the subject, who taught you how to litter? Are you good at littering? Would you consider yourself an amateur or professional or in-between level litter bug?
Littering, sounds strange when asked about a skill or talent that helps no one.
But how best to help ” give a hoot, don’t pollute”? (Thanks Woodsy Owl. Like to come out of retirement?)
This Maine blog post about littering, what makes a litter bug let fly.
To open the window wide. Toss the Happy Meal packaging remains out through the hole where glass used to be.
You could take the approach that litter creates jobs. The highway clean-up crews and effort put into recycling litter all pump lots of money into the economy.
Is it like no no, don’t take your shopping cart to the parking corral or push one back into the store thinking.
Because someone makes a living, can be hired to do that for you. Even though inside more and more shopping places, you and I are being trained to scan and bag our own items. Then asked to rate how did you do with the five-star option. I’d give myself a five for a fine job bagging and tagging at the Wally World or Piggly Wiggly check out.
So littering when walking along a Maine hiking nature park trail or around home.
Done with the empty bottle or can, the candy or gum wrapper, the food container. Throw it, get rid of the debris on your four wheeling or snowmobile stop. Just let gravity do what it does best here on Earth.
Park the car.
Statistics show most littering in Maine done by motorists and usually in the 30 something age group. Tossed on a highway means you can get away from your litter at 55 miles or faster and less apt to know who generated it right? But take a walk down over into the road highway ditch. Littering along a beautiful Maine highway or hiking trail is not pretty. Not many would argue about that right?
But nothing worse than a Maine blog post that shames.
Instead, how to be proactive in understanding the “why” folks litter. I never saw my parents litter. I was brought up to pick up and put litter where it should go… into a garbage pail. So not made to clean up after yourself or just not caring. Is it just lazy?
Take a trip to a third world country and it’s whoa.
Look at all the garbage, everywhere in heaped deep layers around you. It smells, is not sanitary and contaminates. Garbage can be industrial littering where jobs over the environment tkaes priority.
Or just no structure in place for here’s what you do with with littler on any level ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
If the increase in litter because of the higher cost to get rid of it?
No more backing up the family sedan on Saturday morning at a small Maine town dump. To throw another bag or two where the black bears are never far away.
The bulldoze operator idling and ready to pack it down and cover it up to remove it from sight. To ready the land fill dump for the next deposit. Land fills in Maine, those did not help the ground water quality.The black bears were entertaining though.
Take the case of an appliance now that wears out?
Where does it go if not a recycling center transfer station? Dump along an old woods road on someone’s private property?
One of the best ways to cure littering is to grab a pair of gloves, a large refuse bag.
Then high ho, let’s go comb a stretch of Maine highway garbage together. Everyone should take a turn.
Why not adopt a stretch of roadway or trail, parkway to tidy up on a regular basis. Make it a family or civic, school, church group regular event. Not just in spring. Maine highway vegetation can hide a lot of garbage.
Awareness of how bad the situation is often requires hands on, up close and personal inspection of what’s out there for litter.
To study the sheer amount that piles up along a Maine highway over time.
Broken bottles are dangerous. Wildlife has to deal with six pack plastic rings that will never biodegrade.
Left where a Maine lake ice shack sat that just becomes part of the waterfront habitat below.
Shifting up to bulk buying to avoid the individual packaging something to promote?
Why not join a co op and bring your own containers to reduce packaging waste?
Do you have a compost bin out by your garden where you give the crank a heck of a yank?
I’ve witnessed the highway road crews collecting the returnable bottles, collecting the debris each spring in Maine.
Winter must be the peak time for litter bugs.
Or harder to get out to retrieve it. When what’s tossed is out of sight and mind under white fluffy snow during shorter days of light.
As you lead a crew picking up litter it’s hard to not think about how to stop the sheer volume of it.
As you toil, you think what steps need to be taken for this constant clean up procedure to become unnecessary.
Just how best to reduce the growing amount of litter in Maine?
Sure glad Maine has a bottle redemption law. No billboards to pollute the highways with distracting message either.
Littering, why people do it? Is it like the Hank Williams Jr song that littering is “a family tradition”?
Hope not.
Remember the classic litter campaign PSA’s?
Sometimes the trash, litter floats in from across the pond washing up on the coast of Maine.
There are more productive uses of time and money than picking up trash and litter after someone else. With a few adjustments. litter can be reduced or eliminated.
No, don’t need another law on the books about the stiff penalty for littering.
It’s all about education for young grasshoppers. Who help convert older family litter bug members to see the error of their ways.
What does Maine law say about littering anyway?
The state of Maine littering statute today.
Falsetto parenting, where Mom or Dad throw their voice into a higher register like Frankie Valli.
To plead please don’t litter Jimmy or Jane.
That’s not the best way to cause litter reduction.
But if kids don’t practice pick up after yourself at home, they sure are not going to out in the World.
Like quitting smoking, the movement to stop littering takes awareness, education and a statewide approach.
I worked at Maine Broadcasting in Bangor during and after graduating from the University of Maine in Orono.
Fred Nutter would do editorials on the direction the state of Maine should be taking or correcting. Summing it all up with “that’s our opinion, we welcome yours”. Wonder if Fred ever did an editorial on Maine littering?
At Baxter State Park, there is a famous rock to remind all it takes effort.
To keep it clean, to preserve beautiful four season Maine.
The huge rock boulder is called Pockwockamus at the entrance to Baxter State Park in Maine.
Colorfully decorated with a stone billboard reminder it is up to you and I to keep it clean and pristine. Keep Maine beautiful.
Recycling helps reduce the trash, Maine litter.
Keeping trash items in a bag inside a vehicle until you arrive at a place to dispose of them. While traveling instead of throwing debris, garbage out a car window, save it, hold it until you get to a place to deposit litter.
Maybe like the “I voted” or gave blood sticker, there could be a version for a litter bug with a circle slash through the trash image. Or a lineup of five Mainers and the simple question “Can you spot the litter bug?” Keep it clean, it’s your planet, state, local Maine community. Please don’t litter. Keep Maine beautiful.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA