Filming with Canada’s national news agency, CBC, yesterday was a pleasure. 

For me, it began with a tweet to @HavardGould, one of this country’s outstanding investigative journalists.  He and producer Carla Turner exposed the depths of Canada’s dirty secret in a documentary on illegal dumping that aired Monday night.  I took to Twitter to thank @CBCTheNational and to share my knowledge about the link between littering and dumping in 140 characters or less.  “Dumping begins with littering, a gateway crime,” I tweeted.

People don’t start off in life dumping raw garbage into forests, streams and pastures.  They begin their unseemly journey down Environmental Degradation Lane by littering.

Regular readers of my blog will be familiar with my belief that littering is the first rung on a ladder of “green crimes” that can include everything from dumping to vandalism.  Littering is the Ground Zero of anti-social behavioral development, the birthplace of slovenly, a key marker for future showings of public disrespect and illegality. 

The theory of littering as a “gateway” to other anti-social behaviors comes from a noted green criminologist and university lecturer in England.  As soon as he explained it to me, it made perfect sense.

If a person never litters, obviously they will never, ever dump.  Flip the coin and you should be wary of anyone who litters as they do display the same traits as a despicable dumper.

That makes littering no small matter.

 Havard’s documentary elicited a deluge of viewer responses.

To have a slice of national airtime for last night’s follow-up piece, being filmed   picking up trash in our wooded, local park, will always be memorable, especially the dozen or so tightly tied bags of dog crap my dog-walking neighbours left behind.  By chance I was wearing my cool, hemp-cotton, Pick It Up t-shirt from my online pal Jeffrey Poster, of www.stoplittering.com, in North Carolina.

CBC cameraman, Randy, who coincidentally grew up in the area, played in those forests as a kid and went to the same public school as I did, recorded me picking up four plastic shopping bags full of litter, including the disgusting poop bags, in a period of maybe 10 minutes.  My CBC companions were amazed at the level of accumulation, and we only scraped the surface.

There’s a public hunger for answers to this problem.  Maybe with the spotlight of the CBC cross-country documentary, governments and corporations will respond to and back my call for an intelligent conversation about what can be done.

Today I watched a single piece of white office paper travel 50 meters without touching down powered by the heat of exhaust from the garbage truck it was tailing.

Like a kite with no string, it was amazing to watch. How often do you get to see an 8 1/2  x 11 sheet of paper chase a recycling vehicle?  After entertaining me, it settled on a lawn some distance away. My husband dutifully went to fetch it before it could do what litter always does – invite more.

Not to get Biblical or anything, but did you know litter begets litter begets litter, and so on?  Left unattended, one piece of litter will attract others.  A mess accumulates quickly from the hands of littering people.

One of our litter songs hits on the perpetuating nature of litter: “Don’t let litter linger on your lawn too long. It won’t be gone. It travels on and on . . . “

“If you let it linger on your lawn too long, then other people come and pile on and on ...”

Take a look at what my neighbour’s adult kid left on our street. I did an immediate reconnaissance mission and talked to mom and dad, gave them some pocket ashtrays while laying my friendly neighbourhood complaint at their door. The kid was sleeping, but I’m sure his parents gave him the message. 

Mom wanted me to leave the butts scattered to have her son pick them up.  Litter abatement rule #1: Don’t let litter linger. Deal with it.

Sonny Boy and his friend take their smoking out to the curb. I have a different idea of the word ‘curb.’ That is to curb the practice of littering.  Last night’s deposits, scattered at the foot of one driveway, were prolific and unprecedented for our tiny suburban street.  Twenty-four Belmont cigarette butts displayed their plastic filters like shameless exhibitionists. I couldn’t wait to whisk them away, a task that took less than a minute.

One thing I know about litterers, they hate the thought of being seen.  That’s why so much of littering in adults occurs mostly when they are alone, where the act can occur seemingly out of view and by stealth.  (Youth, on the other hand, tend to litter in a group, according to data from Victoria, AU.)

I told mom to let her son know I can see his curbside retreat from my window.  Okay, I dropped the words “YouTube”, “viral” and “$365 fine” into our conversation.  Everything I said was delivered in a most pleasant and friendly tone. I shook dad’s hand. Mom said she hates litter.

I am confident that this particular cigarette litter eradication problem is now solved.  Son now knows someone is watching and he will undoubtedly tell his friend.  One of my favourite sports is cajoling smokers into not littering anymore. This day's outing was 100% successful.

Pfizer Canada just won’t butt out. The company has not only refused to stop airing its TV commercial that depicts cigarette butt littering, it has extended the ad's shelf life. Slated to end in May, the controversial spot, the subject of a complaint to Canada’s advertising regulator, will run at least until October now, said a spokesperson for CEO John Helou.  Christina Antoniou cited “positive feedback from consumers“ as the reason for the unexpected extension.

“Thank you for your comments regarding the visual images of a woman butting out a cigarette on the ground in our smoking cessation advertising campaign,” Pfizer writes.  “As discussed earlier this year, Pfizer agrees with your position that used tobacco products should be discarded in proper receptacles and containers.

“It is not our intention to promote littering but rather to encourage smokers to quit smoking and butt out for good. In the ad, we don’t see the woman abandoning her cigarette on the ground after she butts out and we hope viewers will interpret that she then threw it in the garbage, despite the fact that this image is not shown.”

The corporate doublespeak is dizzying.  In actuality, the woman actor is seen grinding her lit cigarette end into the pavement of a school front step next to where she is seated.  No right minded viewer would assume the character used an ashtray.  I bet the script says something like: 'Last Frame: Woman butts out cigarette on the stair and walks away.

Pfizer isn't the only big corporation that uses advertising to portray mindless acts of littering to sell products. More on that another time perhaps.  Our pitch to AdStandards Canada is to list littering as one of the societal no-no's deemed offensive under the Code, which will be up for review in 18 months or so.

Litter doesn't diminish on its own. In fact it multiplies like an invasive species. 

Bolton takes the nip-in-bud strategy to environmental offences.  Did you know that the threat of being seen and the embarrassment of being caught are two powerful deterrents to all these unwanted behaviours?  

CCTV cameras?  Too bad they are needed.  With all due respect to privacy purists, this may be one instance where the overarching public good trumps the personal infringement argument.  I will leave it to others to debate this.  All I know is I am heartened every time I see a punctuated response to littering, dog-fouling, graffiti and dumping.  Not a one-off of sloganeering or political posturing and toothless laws, but a well thought out series of linked steps to bring the majority-held standard into effect.

You can read more about Bolton's approach in Crime Reporter Miranda Newey's piece in The Bolton News.

When one tries to push for holistic action on littering, the first instinct of those who could most help is to try to dismiss you as crazy.  While Bolton's bold posture fails to prove I'm not crazy, it sure gives legs to my advocacy for sustained responses to littering here at home. 


 

A couple of bright spots popped into view during my recent observations of litter’s ugly trail.

Heading into Toronto at a slow crawl on the Gardiner Expressway I see the signs, their LED bulbs aglow. These are new.  They read: Keep Toronto roads clean. Don’t litter.

This is an idea I’ve been pushing at MTO, whose main roadside litter guy, Mike, welcomed my advocacy. We will be seeing at long last a dedicated litter message displayed during the summer on new provincial road signs slated for some Ontario highways.  You would think something like that would be easy to orchestrate, a classic no-brainer.  In reality, making alterations to any existing government communications program and its bureaucratic approach feels like trying to break into jail.

Next, I want the transport ministry to mention littering on driver license renewal forms.

Another highlight to note, I see there’s a LiveGreen Toronto subway ad campaign to encourage people to recycle, probably aimed at condo dwellers, whose boards are notoriously slow to get with the environmental times.

On occasion I notice really clean commercial lots around town. What a great calling card it is to see open lawns, decent, well-placed containers, conveying respect and caring! The halo effect seemed to spill to the street and sidewalks, which were amazingly absent of litter for a city like Toronto.

I know everyone says, “Toronto is a clean city”.  If we are, we are a clean city with a very dirty secret. Cast your eyes to the broad landscape and you can’t tell me I’m wrong.
***

(June 8, 2014) Had a message from Toronto Ward 6 Councillor Mark Grimes inviting me to speak to a joint Business Improvement Area meeting of 20 or so business owners next Friday. I said I would be delighted.  Litterers pose a particular problem for retailers.  

I’ll be heading to Etobicoke, home of Toronto’s notorious mayor, (who I exposed as a litterer – search keywords: Sheila White Rob Ford littering.)  Fortunately, he’s in drug-and-alcohol rehab right now and can’t do any more damage for a while. 

He’s the human version of the Exxon Valdez. 

I'm using the provincial election in Ontario as an occasion to poll the four political party leaders on what to do about littering.  Elections are vehicles for driving issues onto the public agenda.  I am rather proud of my 10-question survey, formulated around ideas that are floating out there or being tried in other places. Anyone can offer an opinion quickly and easily. Get started here.  Questionnaires are a mainstay of advocacy during election campaign periods, and campaign teams loathe them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ontario's first-ever questionnaire on littering doesn't get, forgive the pun, tossed aside.  I will be publishing the results of this experiment in November's second annual report.

May 19, 2014 - Moving our community cleanup day to May from late April made all the difference today. A bright, sunny morning and all the prep work paid off. Our best turnout in years, a rainbow of ages and ethnicities, enthusiastically filling refuse bags and turning our "Everyone Come Clean" event into a real family affair of close to 80 people.  April is too cold for cleanup events now.  Europe evidently agrees. Its Clean Up Europe day was May 10 too. Also today, across town, in Toronto's trendy Annex district, I was a special invited guest of Neil Stephenson's. Neil's the pioneer and organizer extraordinaire of a brilliant and successful, "red carpet" event I first featured last year in my newsletter December 1 (#43).

Neil's "Litter and Glitter" treats its volunteers like movie stars. After working until noon everyone headed back to renowned eatery Splendido on Harbord Street for a gourmet lunch, live jazz band and an amazing array of high-end prizes, all donated. The best part about both of today's events? The feeling I have in an area where people have taken the time to care for it runs through me like a deep breath of fresh air. I live for the day when the joy of beautiful surroundings is a constant and not an exception in our neighbourhoods. 
 
May 5, 2014 - Let me illustrate how serious I am about not littering. 

Seven houses and the width of a roadway separate my home from my mother's.  Between here and there today, I littered accidentally.  (45 per cent of all littering is "accidental".)  

I was carrying a plastic bag filled with dried cranberries.  Maybe I was swinging it around too much in my glee over a spring day that finally bordered on feeling warm. A hole had developed in the bag and, as I neared my destination, out spilled about a half a cup of loose cranberries, some of them not so loose, more like sticky cranberry wads dotting the road surface. I fully intended to clean them up. Before I could get too far, a rumble from down the street told me a vehicle would soon pass.  Oh no! It was an oversized FedEx van that had just driven its full weight over my derelict berries. Now they are flatberries. No, they're jam.  It was funny, oddly ironic, and highly coincidental all at once.

For many the story would have ended here: Food-mess-on-the-road, oh-well. Your litter maven, however, was not about to have the wretched sight of spilled food stay on the road.  It looked conspicuously out of place and uninviting.  I retrieved a metal dustbin from my mother's pantry and a straw whisk. Back to the road and to the scene of my crime, I painstakingly removed every blinkin' berry even though it meant digging most of them up with my thumbnail.  Thankfully we live on a little-travelled city street. I didn't have to worry about traffic, aside from the odd FedEx truck. The appearance of the street when I finished was well worth the few minutes of tidying involved.  

I sprinkled my collected cranberries under some of mom's trees knowing, here on private property, they would be devoured by grateful birds and greedy squirrels. 

The moral of this story is: If you litter, pick it up and be a hero in the natural world.

Irony of ironies

Sometimes I swear litter mocks me.  The very next day after sending a letter on my favourite subject to the editor of our local newspaper, litter is in my face yet again.

You can see my letter in its entirety on my Shlog.  In it I made reference to careless newspaper and flyer delivery contributing to the litter stream.  Overall I was urging the media outlet to use its influence to reshape littering behaviors.  This particular newspaper wrote an editorial about Earth Day without using it as an opportunity to nudge readers to not litter. In fact the words ‘litter’ and ‘littering’ completely escaped a mention.  Unfortunately, this is a norm.

I live close to my mother and keep her beautiful expanse of lawns and gardens litter-free, hauled out a few bags full some weeks ago.  True to my letter to the editor, what awaited me on the concrete pad leading to the steps of mom’s front door?  It was a double inside page of the same newspaper I had written to, part of the Metroland chain, owned by the Toronto Star.

Retrieving the littered paper, I took a closer look. The dominant headline brought an irony-smacking grimace to my face.  A full page story with colour photo and the title blazing: “Residents help keep community clean.“

Yes, litter mocks, litter taunts.

April 22, 2014  If you want to know what it means to have a good Earth Day, go into a school and sing your songs about litter with hundreds of children from Junior Kindergarten to Grade Six joining in.  The power of song is remarkable in its own right, but coupled with our litter prevention and awareness message it is as close to magic as you can get without the wand and bunny. I will be editing the audio from our 45-minute presentation and hope to post a few excerpts from it soon.  What you will hear are voices of an enthusiastic and diverse group of children ringing out an endorsement for participatory edu-tainment: education and entertainment as one, broadly appealing and universally necessary, not to mention incredibly effective.

April 17, 2014  Good news to report. I have been granted my long-sought meeting with McDonald's Restaurants of Canada.  Instead of accepting 'no' for an answer, I pressed for a 'yes' and must have left the impression that I wasn't going away.  Wouldn't it be nice if one of the big fast food giants took a bite out of litter as part of an awareness campaign and became a leader rather than an artful dodger?

Rogers Community 10 is devoting resources to film the Litter Prevention Program in action next Tuesday for future broadcast in the Toronto area.  A crew will be following us around for half a day.

April 4, 2014 - I live close to my mother. Yesterday I picked up all the litter around her sizable yard, a chore she used to give me as a girl, but doesn't remember now because of an aging mind hobbled by Alzheimer's. She has become an environmental extremist (always was) to the point where she views flushing the toilet with the handle as wasting water. Her preferred method is manually, with a pail of water saved in the bathtub from her morning shower. 

I make this point about her environmentalism to underscore the improbability of her ever generating any loose litter. She recycles vigorously, composts religiously, reuses to the point of ridiculousness and fills a garbage bag every few months or so. Her electricity bill is $50 a month.  Yet I managed to stuff several plastic grocery bags full of litter retrieved from her property, fighting wind, entanglement and bush branches to do so. I also cleared some stray pieces from another front lawn of a home whose owner is physically disabled. 

Litterers victimize everyone with their garbage and defacement, but they pick on the frail, ill or aging the most. Just my observation.

If you read the caption, above, and guessed that this scene was taken immediately outside the door of a downtown hospital, you'd be right. I took this photo yesterday to illustrate what's lacking in this whole quit smoking drive, which pushes tobacco litter outdoors into uncontrolled settings absent of ash receptacles. I provide a service that is sorely needed, that of simply talking nicely to smokers and giving them an ashtray.  Then they are more than willing to cooperate with your anti-littering drives. No bylaw that chases smoking outside should prevent the installation of ash receptacles, but that is the unfortunate result of most smoking bans for areas around entranceways.  (March 27, 2014)

 A positive litter reminder popped into my head. Three words "Contain your litter". And I learned a new word for "litterbug" from the UK the other day. It's "grub".  (March 24, 2014) 

Positively creative! There's something catchy about the City of Rochester's logo - trying to make things "a litter bit better."  I love creativity, the sure road to solving problems.  Be creative. One of my favourite Cole Porter songs says it all: "Use Your Imagination". What do I imagine? I imagine I can make a difference. And you can,too. Where does your imagination take you ? (March 18, 2014)

Yesterday I knocked on a neighbour’s door and asked her to dispense with the multiple huge mounds of dog pooh straddling the property line in the front yard. She said ‘yes’. Big, friendly, 3-year-old boxer named Leo was the culprit. Not his normal practice. Headline: Canine breaks jail, neighbour cries 'foul'. (March 18, 2014)