We should not turn a blind eye to littering

Our city is dying, under the weight of thousands of plastic bottles, fast food wrappers, and plastic bags that have been thrown carelessly around the streets. We often discuss large-scale industrial dumping, but we easily overlook another major problem, our daily habit of littering. We often turn a blind eye or refuse to acknowledge how often we neglect our communities and dump garbage wherever. I often see people casually littering on sidewalks, tossing trash out windows, even opening full doors just to throw a trash bag out! Although it may seem small, these acts of littering add up, and they all negatively affect our environment. We have to cut the trash or our planet will face severe consequences.

When thinking about the environment we think about the entire world, but we neglect the animals that live just within our neighborhood; we debate global climate policies yet we ignore the trash blowing all over our sidewalks. In a news report from News10NBC they highlight the increasing amount of trash on Interstate 490. It’s not just the interstate, in just the past week I have seen not one, not two, but three cases of people throwing trash straight out of their cars; one party even opened their door fully to dispose of their trash on the road. People like Barbara Jean Indivino, who spend hours picking up trash weekly, exclaim, “I burn up inside. Burn up. I just can’t believe that people are so disrespectful… The trash and litter just continues and continues and continues.” She feels disheartened that people will just treat the area like an open trash can.

Under the New York State Property Maintenance Code a certain regulation prevents exterior properties and shared urban spaces from accumulating loose rubbish and garbage. Basic civic duties basically say that public spaces belong to everyone, so it’s a shot in everyone’s chest when one individual decides they can just dump trash like it’s their own property. With increased accumulation of garbage it not only risks wildlife, but can be immediately disastrous for us too. There are multiple cases of garbage clogging storm drains, leading to severe flooding in areas.

A lot of people may argue that litter is inevitable with a busy urban development, or that this litter can easily be cleaned by the city cleaning crews, but the reality is the trash we produce is way more than what a cleaning crew can remove. This litter doesn’t just vanish, we have nowhere to put it, the trash breaks down into microplastics that infiltrate our soil, water, and animals in nature. When normalizing a culture of littering we’re just asking for our neighborhood to be destroyed.

Fixing this problem can’t just be done with writing tickets for those who litter. Although the government of Rochester has incentives to report those who are caught littering, by rewarding $100 to each person that has evidence of another party littering, it just isn’t enough.

We can provide incentives to an entire community for events such as “Cleanup Days” when the neighborhood comes together to clean up trash for the day, and they are rewarded for their participation. A higher incentive for reporting others would also incentivize us to not only stop littering, but for others to actively report those who are caught breaking the law.

If we want a brighter future, and a cleaner city, we have to act as a community and prevent future tragedy. We must take accountability for our actions, we must change how we treat our streets one piece of trash at a time.

Jayden Zheng

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