As the snow melts a well-worn sight is fully revealed. Like a receding hairline looming in the mirror at a man contemplating a hair transplant, the baldness of human activity is found in the litter that winter’s yielding reveals.
The assumption that someone anytime soon, if at all, is going to run out and clean up the garbage is absurd. There it shall sit, or blow, or get soggy or entangle itself in a tree branch and stick out its tongue at everyone who passes. I bet you didn’t know branded paper pizza trays, waxy cups and wet napkins had tongues. I assure you, orange or red logos on soggy cardboard swimming in an ice puddle or wafting against a white drift are a mocking sight indeed.
Litter is a blight no question, and the people who demonstrate littering behaviors are blighters. It is surprising, though, that many of them drive nice cars and live in clean homes.
I met with one of the big five litter generating product manufacturers recently and posed a question I always ask of big corporations. “Do you specifically frown on littering as part of your corporate dialogue with employees concerning codes of conduct?”
‘Well,’ said the corporate director, ‘we expect anyone who works for us not to litter.’
That doesn’t work in marketing. You don’t merely expect a potential customer to buy your product. You have to tell them. Similarly, you cannot simply expect your employees to not litter. You have to tell them. State the expectation and the consequence. Statistics don’t lie. At least three in ten of your employees are litterers.
And they’re messing up my street.
The assumption that someone anytime soon, if at all, is going to run out and clean up the garbage is absurd. There it shall sit, or blow, or get soggy or entangle itself in a tree branch and stick out its tongue at everyone who passes. I bet you didn’t know branded paper pizza trays, waxy cups and wet napkins had tongues. I assure you, orange or red logos on soggy cardboard swimming in an ice puddle or wafting against a white drift are a mocking sight indeed.
Litter is a blight no question, and the people who demonstrate littering behaviors are blighters. It is surprising, though, that many of them drive nice cars and live in clean homes.
I met with one of the big five litter generating product manufacturers recently and posed a question I always ask of big corporations. “Do you specifically frown on littering as part of your corporate dialogue with employees concerning codes of conduct?”
‘Well,’ said the corporate director, ‘we expect anyone who works for us not to litter.’
That doesn’t work in marketing. You don’t merely expect a potential customer to buy your product. You have to tell them. Similarly, you cannot simply expect your employees to not litter. You have to tell them. State the expectation and the consequence. Statistics don’t lie. At least three in ten of your employees are litterers.
And they’re messing up my street.
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