Talking Trash -- Warning: TWBAR (This Will Be A Rant)

I am not going to show you a picture of litter in my driveway, today. Trust me. It looks the same everywhere. But a little daffodil –looking down (at the trash)--can only do so much to create country ambience when it’s competing for visual superiority among heaps of paper, plastic, and aluminum garbage!

Every time I go to the mailbox and find a Bud-Lite can flung out someone’s car window, taunting me as it glitters fiendishly in my driveway, or a pile of McDonald’s Styrofoam hamburger “wrappers” and leftover hamburgers, rummaged the previous evening by a poor old possum (whose every scrounged meal is a Happy Meal), leaving the by-products shredded and scattered, or a Pizza Hut box which crows were scavenging just before my arrival--strewn across my normally pristine entryway, I seethe with anger. I even found an old sock (with a hole in it) the other day. Worst of all, I guess, are the big BAGS of trash that someone purposely dumped in the depression off to the right of my driveway, because they were too lazy to take them to the landfill on free day.

Every landfill in our state offers a “free day” so even those who are strapped for cash can stash their trash at the dump. Who ARE these people? More to the point, who do they THINK they are? What do they look like? How can they be so barbaric and poorly educated as to drop THEIR trash in MY HOME? Or anywhere, for that matter….expecting all of us to pick up behind them?! I simply cannot call it “thoughtless.” Everyone knows about litter these days. Everyone knows you’re not supposed to dump your trash on someone else’s ground. If you don’t have a litter bag in your car, you’re supposed to take refuse home and put it in the waste can.


Yes, I know about the Adopt-A-Highway Program. I guess I am resentful. The principle of this arrangement, simply grates on my sensibilities. I know: somebody’s gotta pick it up….and we want our driveways clean….but it angers me to have to clean up behind slobs.  But, of course, some of our tax dollars go toward litter clean-up anyway...

We have even had delivery trucks pass through our farm –in and out—making a delivery, only to find candy wrappers, tossed out the window of their truck on their way!


People, you need to know that every single piece of trash, no matter how seemingly infinitesimal, is VISIBLE to us country-types when you toss it out your car window. We SEE it. I know…you’re sorry….you never thought about it because teeny tiny wrappers are commonplace in cities. The wind lifts them and they swirl out of sight in the traffic---Lifesavers individually wrapped with those cute little cellophane protectors, small boxes that once held Dots candy, a Reese’s brown paper cup…..are gross anomalies amidst the pastoral beauty here. This kind of litter, out here JOTOLR, stands out like a polar bear among penguins.


And you know what the number one object of litter is? You’ll never guess.


Cigarette butts. Yep. That’s right. The butts are made of cellulose acetate (manufactured right near here JOTOLR, providing good jobs.) They're not made of cotton, which would at least be biodegradable, eventually. The acetate takes decades to break down, environmentally. And the toxic residue in cigarette filters is damaging to the environment, as well--not to mention they're responsible for setting many fires during summer’s dry conditions.


There’s an organization called Cigarette Litter.  It lists campaigns against cigarette butts throughtout the world. In the UK the Gedling Borough Council says, “It is estimated that 40% of the litter in the Borough is smoking related, be it wrappers, cartons, or cigarette ends.” Estimates run as high as several trillion cigarette butts littered worldwide every year. That’s billions of cigarette butts flicked, one at a time, onto our sidewalks, beaches, nature trails, farms, gardens, and other public places every single day!


I’m sure most smokers don’t even think about this, but out here JOTOLR we SEE those butts. They are eventually visible no matter where they are flicked. I have picked up behind unthinking visitors, who, standing and talking, or driving in or out, toss the butt out into the pasture (or onto our weedy “lawn”), thinking the butts will go unnoticed. Believe me, they ARE noticed.


Here are some salient litter facts:


Nationwide, the annual cost of roadside litter control is $115 million; (wouldn’t that go a long way toward providing health care for everyone!) West Virginia ranks among the WORST eight states in the country for litter; Virginia ranks in the BEST eight states; West Virginia spends more than $1 million annually to remove litter from state highways; West Virginia’s highway litter is composed of 59 percent paper, 16 percent cans, 6 percent bottles, 6 percent plastics, and 13 percent miscellaneous; most common items found are fast-food wrappers; second most common item—beer cans; cigarette butts are not considered, though, when addressing litter cleanup. 

So, please…if you’ve been guilty of dumping the leftovers of your Happy Meal in somebody’s driveway, or flicking your cigarette butt out the window…take a little time to consider what we country-dwellers are wishing on you:

If you with litter do disgrace

And spoil the beauty of this place

May indigestion rack your chest

And ants invade your pants and vest!