Highway Litter Picker-upper

I remember what it used to be like up north when the snow would melt in the spring. You'd be driving along the highway and see scads of litter emerging from the snowbanks and getting blown about by spring winds. Lots of plastic bags, coffee cups and of course, pop and beer cans. But at some point, magically it seemed, the litter would all disappear. How did that happen? Was their a litter fairy out there somewhere? Or was it just the highways department who came along and cleaned hundreds of kilometres of highway? I'm still not sure...

What I do know is that some provinces have an Adopt-a-Highway program. Every spring, and/or periodically through the warmer months, groups of volunteers go out with gloves, bags and reflective vests and pick up garbage along stretches of the highways. In Alberta, you can even get a sign which stakes your claim to that section of highway. It's a cool concept, and I even participated in one highway cleanup a few years (decades ago).

I was visiting a friend in Vanderhoof who belonged to a church group. That weekend, their group was slated to do a spring clean-up of a stretch of Highway 27 heading to Fort St. James. We got our gloves and bags and got organized. I think each person got a kilometre of highway and we got dropped off in little clumps. The roadside was mostly grass, bordered by farm fields. And there was a tonne of garbage in the grassy verge. It doesn't look like that much when you're whipping by at 100 kph but... when you're trudging along on foot... wow. There were lots of tires, empty oil/windshield washer/coolant containers, plastic bags, coffee cups, beer cans, pop cans, cigarette packages, candy wrappers, potato chip bags, etc, etc.

The process of bending and picking gave me lots of time to think... was all of this litter intentional throw-away stuff? Or had it blown out of the back of somebody's pick-up truck? A mixture of both quite likely. I'm not exactly sure why drivers feel it's OK to fill up their coolant/windshield washer/oil and then leave the 4 litre container along the side of the road... but they do. It's a rather odd attitude... "let someone else deal with it".  Maybe their mother always cleaned up behind them at home? Or is it just a flagrant disregard for the environment? Or just a "It's just one container..." attitude. Not sure... although some studies say it's a combination of carelessness and laziness. People don't believe that littering has any real consequence... hard to imagine given how ugly litter looks, particularly when it is washed into storm drains and out into the ocean where its harmful affects on marine life are well documented.

I have also learned, that in the 1960s and 1970s, it was quite common for people to toss their litter out their car windows and not give it a second thought. It was socially acceptable to be a litter bug... at least in some areas. But in the 1970s and 1980s... that all changed and littering became less and less socially acceptable. Sooo... is it the older people who are still set in their ways who are the main mobile litterbugs?

Apparently not... the UK did a study on mobile littering and found that one in seven drivers admitted to throwing trash out of their vehicles (that's 14% of drivers). There were five main reasons given for littering while driving:

• force of habit (25%),
• preventing clutter in the vehicle (21%),
• they couldn't stop on the road (20%),
• improving their concentration while driving (20%)
• keeping the vehicle from smelling (19%).

As for the age spread... 25% of drivers between the ages of 18-34 were deliberate litterers compared to only 5% of drivers over the age of 55. Huh, go figure... And... a study from the US showed that 70-75% of litterers (deliberate or accidental) were male. It would seem that young male drivers are the worst offenders...

Distressing as it was to see how much litter lay along the side of the highway north of Vanderhoof... picking up all that litter was very, very satisfying. I can't really put it into words... it just felt really good at a very deep, spiritual level (and not just cause it was a church group).

Here in our city, I've noticed that a team of people in ATVs clean up the garbage along the highway where it passes through town. I think they are from the highway maintenance contractor so our highways generally look pretty ship-shape most of the time. Not getting the snowfall that the north gets, also means that our highway litter is easily pickable year-round.

A highway in Vietnam with roadside litter.

It really doesn't bear thinking about what it could look like without regular litter collection. A few years back, my partner and I went to SE Asia and they don't have groups of volunteers or highway maintenance crews picking up litter along their roadsides. And it shows. There is a tonne of garbage along the roads, all of that will eventually flow or blow into streams and rivers. No wonder that so many of the waterways are covered with a floating scum of plastic. We were at one beach and it's gross to swim in the water and continually encounter floating plastic bags and other oddments.

And... it's not just a SE Asia problem. I read an article the other day about a group in Scotland that got fed up with decades worth of accumulated garbage along a stretch of road called the Lang Whang. Sounds Asian... but it's just Scottish for a "long leather bootlace"...

Ultimately, however, picking up litter along the highways and biways of our fair province isn't really addressing the problem. It's a bandaid solution and the problem will really only get addressed when people take responsibility for their litter. Having walked several kilometres of that northern highway a few years back, picking up trash, gave me a new appreciation for litter. I don't toss anything out of my vehicle... not even apple cores (they are bad for wildlife...).

Litter Pick up Ahead sign

I had a poke around the web on the psychology of littering and... it appears that two thirds of the issue is environmental or contextual and only one third rests with the individual.

Basically, if there is already a lot of litter on the ground, people feel it's OK to litter. So the trick is to provide the right bins in the right places. Which makes sense in a downtown core but, in our semi-rural, suburban area... I know of only three bins: two by bus stops and one by the convenience store. And... those bins don't really help the drivers who are "losing" their candy wrappers and beer cans in the grassy verges. Nor does it help the drivers who stop at the community mailboxes to pick up their mail and decide that it is also the perfect time to empty their vehicle of their McDonald's take-away wrappers... or empty their ash tray... or toss the unwanted junk mail on the ground. Maybe if our city had garbage bins at every community mailbox? Which would make taxes go up because not only do they have to be installed, they also have to be emptied... Or maybe everyone could just take their garbage home with them.

I once read that Disneyland/Disneyworld is pristine... not a speck of trash or litter anywhere. Apparently they did a study and watched how far people would walk while holding a piece of trash. About 30 feet. So, guess how far apart the garbage bins are spaced at Disneyland/world? Yep... 30 feet. And... every Disney employee, from the executives on down, will pick up any piece of trash they see lying on the ground. Too bad that doesn't work in the real world...

Maybe if every school kid followed a piece of litter all the way to the ocean where it ended up choking some seal's stomach. Or they had to do a stint of litter pickup along the highways. Or maybe if we learned how much material/energy/water/gasoline goes into that candy wrapper... the contents of which get eaten in five minutes (or less) and then... is tossed.

Caring for Alberta Highways

I had a look and all four of the western provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC) have Adopt-a-Highway programs... It used to be, when I participated decades ago, that the volunteer group would receive compensation in the form of dollars/pound of garbage collected. But, that is no longer the case. Although, volunteer groups do get to keep any cans/bottles, which, in some provinces, can give you some serious cash.

British Columbia's program also has the added benefit of encouraging groups to report invasive weeds when they encounter them along their stretch of highway. It's really a win-win scenario... although BC says there are "14 Reasons to Adopt a Highway in BC". BC even lists available sections of road for volunteer groups to adopt (none in our area, alas).

Of course, it doesn't just land on the schools... it lands on parents as well. If a quarter of adults aged 18-34 throw trash out of their vehicles... what message does that send to the children in the car with them? I don't have kids... but when our nieces and nephews come to visit... they're going to not just see us avoiding throwing trash out of the vehicle... they are going to now see us actively picking up litter wherever we go.