The Sherman Doctrine on Littering

The Sherman Doctrine on Littering

Littering is a problem. We see trash everywhere – on streets and sidewalks, along highways, in and around schools, train stations and bus terminals. Here are some observations I considered in developing my doctrine.

1. Some people are litterbugs. They thoughtlessly toss away cigarette butts, candy and gum wrappers, coffee cups, soda cans, plastic bottles, Styrofoam fast food packaging, paper bags – you name it. These people create the problem.

2. Other people do not litter. I do not litter. Ever. I am not unusual. My unscientific assumption is that most of you reading this do not litter.

3. I do not know what percentage of the population are non-litterers, but It may be surprisingly high. Suppose that 90% of the people in our area never ever dropped a piece of litter on the street or threw any litter from their cars. Would our streets and roadways be immaculate? No. They’d be filthy. With the volume of traffic we have, 1 out of 10 pedestrians or drivers dropping things would create a disgusting mess.

4. I do not believe that littering can be eradicated by using positive or negative reinforcement to change the behavior of litterers.

5. Therefore, we in the non-littering majority, have two choices. We either do nothing about the litter we see every day OR we pick some of it up.

Now here is the Sherman doctrine:
Proposition A:
Every time I leave home or return to it, I pick up every piece of litter I see on the sidewalk in front of the house or in the driveway. If you see any trash in front of my house, you know it was dropped after the last time I passed by.
Proposition B:
Every time I go someplace as a pedestrian, I pick up at least one piece of trash. If my route takes me past litter baskets, I deposit one piece of trash in each one.

This procedure does not cost me a noticeable amount of time. It also does not make a noticeable difference in the cleanliness of my neighborhood. However, what if a large number of non-litterers followed the Sherman Doctrine? THAT might make a noticeable difference.

At a minimum, everyone should follow Proposition A. It doesn’t matter whether you live in a house or an apartment building. Do not tolerate any trash, not a single cigarette butt, in front of the place where you live. Pick it up! If you do it every time, it will never accumulate. Every day, I find something in front of my house to pick up, but not a lot.

In some places, Proposition A is in force. There are residential streets, including some in my Bronx neighborhood, that are litter-free because on those streets all the homeowners do what I do. These beachheads of cleanliness can be extended to cover all residential streets.

If a critical mass of people adopt Proposition B, I’m convinced that the unsightly shopping areas in the Bronx and elsewhere can become noticeably cleaner.

OK non-litterers. You’ve read the Sherman doctrine. Are you going to follow it?