Another Reason "I Hate People"

I like to throw that phrase around; anyone who know me understands it selfishly means I hate what people do to inconvenience me, yet in general I am very nice to people - a sweetie even. But there are plenty of reasons to hate people, really, and I am reminded of one daily: the staggering amount of trash covering every bit of unused land in this city, and pretty much any city I have visited.
My exercise walks and rides take me through a wide variety of neighborhoods; rich or poor, one thing unites them: there are broken beer bottles, styrofoam cups, plastic shopping bags and cigarette packs on the edges of every street, and in every vacant lot or bayou or unused field.
Who the FUCK is throwing beer bottles and coffee cups and God knows what else out the window of the car? Does anybody know someone who does that?
I would bet you could ask a million people and they'd all proclaim their innocence. Yet it isn't being shipped in from a warehouse somewhere; there's trash EVERYWHERE.
I've never in my life seen anyone throw a beer bottle onto a street, but I guarantee you there is one on every street in this town. And the town I grew up in. And the towns I visit.
If I asked my neighbor if he throws garbage into my street and my lawn, he would surely reply NO!! in shock. It's a nice lower middle class neighborhood, integrated, child friendly, 50K income average. He's a well educated, married man in his 40s; they drive nice cars and take care of the yard. But two nights a week, they stack their garbage in front of the mailbox for pickup - in flimsy paper bags, garbage bags, old boxes. I'd bet less than 75% of what he puts out for garbage is still there when the garbagemen come to pick it up; the rest has been strewn about by dogs and blown around by the wind. Into my yard, yes, but more significantly into the general neighborhood. About half my neighbors can't be bothered to use a trash can, which costs, golly, at least $10.
Sidebar, this is possible because of another lovely aspect of human nature: the tendency to not think beyond or before the instant they are living in. More on that another day.
Some neighbors prefer the self-cleaning pickup truck method; put your garbage in the bed of the truck, drive a while, and the garbage evaporates, naturally, returning to the environment.


I don't have a coherent point here. I'm just musing on something that disgusts me, something that saps my hope for a better world, future, country. There are all these huge issues I debate on Facebook, political issues of budget and welfare and retirement, terrorism, religion... then I go for a nice healthy bike ride and realize as a species, we still haven't even learned not to shit in our neighbor's yard. That doesn't fill me with hope for a Utopia.

sigh. Sweet dreams!