Talk:Litter

Earlier talk
I think most of the additions added by Norm are great. However, Norm also ad ded this one section, which is POV:


 * Who is to blame?


 * The rise of fast food companies serving their food in cardboard and plastic instead of using reusable plates have increased the ammount of litter in modern times. Smokers are also blamed since a lot of their ciggarette stubs end up as litter. Younger people often litter because they think it is "cool" to litter.

To say fast food restaurants are responsible for litter is like saying Smith & Wesson is responsible for gun-related crime or that McDonald's is responsible for making people fat. Fast food restaurants don't hire people to spread litter: in fact most encorage their patrons to responsibly dispose of their trash. The smokers sentence is also a little POV, but it is true a lot of them do toss their butts out of their car windows. Perhaps something should also be said about how they can spark fires? I don't know if the "younger people" sentence is completely accurate either. In short, it needs NPOV'ing and then can be added back in. Anyone want to take a shot at it? a lot of people want to help the place with the littering but the people that keep on ruining the place is the people that dont care about the earth and people should worry more about it. &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 18:46, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Could a section be added for countries that have stopped/reduced litter e.g. Finland, Scandinavian counties and Japan ? Talk 9:00, Sep 7, 2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.31.241.93 (talk) 08:08, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

What Is Litter?
Responses to Below: SEE my paper. Provides thorough Definiton of litter.  Stevewonder2 21:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)stevewonder2

I'm curious just what is defined as litter and what is unavoidable human detritus? I assume that hair and skin that naturally fall off aren't considered litter but what about seeds that get stuck in our shoes or crumbs from our food that can find their way accidentally into a vulnerable ecosystem they could disrupt? Or perhaps even vomit, which surely isn't littered intentionally. In response to the aforementioned reasons that littering is good: Why should anyone be hired to pick up trash? When someone is paid to do a job they are often motivated to try to preserve that job by assuring that the need for their job remains. If I were hired to pick up trash, it would be in my best interest to do exactly what this person is telling us to do. If I were employed to pick up trash, I would encourage everyone to litter so that not only would my job be more secure, but I might even get a raise. Isn't this the same tactic that tobacco companies use when they encourage kids to smoke? Why do we punish tobacco companies for trying to keep their income secure and not punish trash collectors for trying to encourage people to litter? At least acknowledge that the temptation to promote oneself at the expense of ones community exists. Now, I'm baffled that this person thinks that the lack of an alternative to littering is a reason FOR littering. And I'm also baffled that they can't think of any good alternatives to littering either. However, it's not my job to come up with solutions to littering. There's a limit to how much help I'm willing to hand out free of charge. I find it very hard to follow this persons reasoning and can only recognize one sound, albeit controversial, reason that littering COULD have a positive impact. Eddietoran 22:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Speaking of smoking, how are smokers expected to not litter? When you're done with a cigarette you have no choice but to throw the butt on the ground, unless by some chance there happens to be one of those public ashtrays there. You have to get rid of your cigarette before you can get on a bus, and I doubt anyone just pockets it.
 * No, you're supposed to throw it in a public trash can. Unless you're smoking on some rural park trail hundreds of miles from civilization, or you live in a city with really bad public services, there is always a trash can nearby.  And if you're driving, that's what the ashtray is for; you're supposed to keep the stubs in the ashtray until you get to a trash can (and of course all gas stations have cans). --Coolcaesar 03:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Who's to blame for litter
I have removed the section "Who's to blame for litter?" as the entire section was a big mess. The title was unprofessional, The first paragraph of the article was little more than a list of people who litter, and the other section was written like a grade seven essay. Not only did it not elaborate on some of the points it was trying to make, which for the most part were uncited, it was also written from a non-NPOV. If such a section is deemed necessary for this article, it would have to be entirely rewritten in order to solve these problems. Therefore, I have removed the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Twipie (talk • contribs) 07:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

what is litter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.62.197 (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced figure
''Cigarette buds are the most littered item in the world, with 4.5 trillion discarded annually. The cellulose acetate buds are not biodegradable and, as a result, their chemical decomposition can take many decades.'' DONT LITTER!

The source for that statement doesn't mention the 4.5 trillion figure. Does anyone have a source, or should this figure be removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zeldafanjtl (talk • contribs) 05:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

FlipFlop project
I added this:

In Kiwayu, a Kenyan island, some of the collected litter (flip-flops) is used for making art, which is then sold (see FlipFlop Recycling Company ).

Perhaps a page can be made on it, its quite important as it's the only project I know that is economically beneficial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.103.165 (talk) 11:16, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Project encouraging people to voluntarily clean up beaches

 * Project encouraging people to voluntarily clean up beaches and deposit it in a container

Perhaps mention in article KVDP (talk) 14:47, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

"Garbage"
The usage and primary topic of is under discussion, see talk:garbage (disambiguation) -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 04:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110328031044/http://townsville.qld.gov.au/resident/environment/Documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%20Littering.pdf to http://www.townsville.qld.gov.au/resident/environment/Documents/Fact%20Sheet%20-%20Littering.pdf

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Requested move 20 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

– There is WP:NOPRIMARY topic for this word. Litter (vehicle) gets a roughly equal amount of views, and also has historical longterm significance. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:11, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Litter → Litter (waste)
 * Litter (disambiguation) → Litter


 * Oppose - the proposed disambiguator is awkward, which tends to indicate that the article is a proper primary topic. -- Netoholic @ 02:12, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not really sure what this means exactly. What is your argument against it here? I think all disambiguations are, to some extent, "awkward". But they are also necessary, because "litter" has two equally relevant meanings between the waste product and the vehicle.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 04:44, 21 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I disagree. The current primary is the primary. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:33, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. This should be a no-brainer. No topic comes close to "more than all the other topics combined" in pageviews (|Litter_(vehicle)|Litter_(rescue_basket)|Litter_(animal) whether you include or |Litter_(vehicle)|Litter_(rescue_basket)|Litter_(animal)|Cat_litter|Plant_litter|The_Litter leave out topics such as cat litter). And among the waste, vehicle, rescue basket, group of baby animals, etc, I really don't see how the waste usage has more long-term significance than the others. Dohn joe (talk) 15:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose - it's an incredibly important topic, and has been since forever. It's almost trivia-question material that a group of newborn animals can be called a litter. Red   Slash  16:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * But the vehicle has also been an important topic since antiquity, and both those topics get nearly the same pageviews, with the waste topic even benefiting from the basename bump, correct? Dohn joe (talk) 17:40, 21 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.