It’s litter-ally the law!

In his incomparable A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold introduces us to the concept of a land ethic. He writes:

“I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written.’ Only the most superficial student of history will suppose that Moses ‘wrote’ the Decalogue; it evolved in the minds of a thinking community, and Moses wrote a tentative summary of it for a ‘seminar.” I say tentative because evolution never stops. The evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as an emotional process.” 

Yesterday, we alluded to the idea that laws alone are insufficient to get US where we want and need to go. Here’s an example. Minnesota has a law against littering.

169.42 LITTERING; DROPPING OBJECT ON VEHICLE; MISDEMEANOR.

Subdivision 1. Objects on highway.

No person shall throw, deposit, place, or dump, or cause to be thrown, deposited, placed, or dumped upon any street or highway or upon any public or privately owned land adjacent thereto without the owner's consent any snow, ice, glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, garbage, swill, papers, ashes, cigarette filters, debris from fireworks, refuse, carcass of any dead animal, offal, trash or rubbish or any other form of offensive matter, or any other substance likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle upon any such street or highway. 

recycling and trash cans awaiting pickup

Photo by J. Harrington

On our township road, littering occurs regularly. From a few observations, it appears to me one of the most frequent offenders are the open top trash trucks that use hydraulic(?) arms to lift the trash can and dump it into the collection box. Since we don’t have organized collection, there are several trash days each week and on any given collection day the amount of roadside litter is noticeably increased because the trucks drive along with the open top open and litter blows out. I doubt the drivers ever even look in their mirrors and have yet to see one stop and collect their litter.

So, we have one example of a poorly enforced law that accomplishes little more than to convince folks to be scofflaws. Identifying additional examples isn’t all that hard. Alternatively, as we mentioned yesterday, there’s Elinor Ostrum’s principles for managing commons and the Leopold Foundation’s explanation:

Ethics direct all members of a community to treat one another with respect for the mutual benefit of all. A land ethic expands the definition of “community” to include not only humans, but all of the other parts of the Earth, as well: soils, waters, plants, and animals, or what Leopold called “the land.”

Thoughtlessness is but one form of disrespect for an area and those who live in it. Trash truck drivers may not be evil, but they certainly appear thoughtless. Littering may not be among the more critical problems we’re facing, but it does offer an example of how laws can be of little use in framing behavior, particularly the actions of those who remain unknown and unseen. Have any of you seen reference to ethics in our Common Core Curricula? All I see are standards for English and Math. No standards for how to be a good person or proper citizen? Think about that. In fact, as far as I can see, we have more requirements for getting a driver’s license or buying a firearm than for running for school board or local government.

the trash men

By Charles Bukowski

here they come

these guys

grey truck

radio playing

they are in a hurry

it’s quite exciting:

shirt open

bellies hanging out

they run out the trash bins

roll them out to the fork lift

and then the truck grinds it upward

with far too much sound . . .

they had to fill out application forms

to get these jobs

they are paying for homes and

drive late model cars

they get drunk on Saturday night

now in the Los Angeles sunshine

they run back and forth with their trash bins

all that trash goes somewhere

and they shout to each other

then they are all up in the truck

driving west toward the sea

none of them know

that I am alive

REX DISPOSAL CO.

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