To reduce litter, you get rid of the trash receptacles, right?

by Ken

Some time ago signs suddenly appeared in one of my frequently used subway stations, the Rector Street station of the no. 1 train, informing riders that, as part of a campaign to reduce litter in the subway, all the trash receptacles were going to be removed from the station.

Um, wait a sec, removed? Yes, removed. The thinking (for want of a better word) was that if people saw that they had no option but to carry their trash with them to . . . well, points unknown, then they would feel obliged to do so. This is based, of course, on the assumption that it's the option of using a trash can that causes people to litter. I know that sounds crazy, but does it sound any crazier than saying that people deprived of the possibility of depositing their litter in a suitable receptacle will be more likely to dispose of it responsibly?

Of course what's really being saved is the cost of removing the canned trash. Once the crud is in the trash can, after all, it becomes the responsibility of the designated authorities to do something with it. Somewhere along the line some genius came up with the "idea" that having trash cans readily available makes people lazy and causes them to litter.

From the Great Minds Think Alike file we learn that the National Park Service has reached the same conclusion, and implemented it in the form of a revolutionary new "Trash Free Parks" initiative. In this case the Washington Post's "In the Loop" team followed up. (I suspect that this item was written by "Loop" deputy Emily Heil, who wrote the earlier piece linked at the outset.)

When cans get canned

We wrote last month about the Park Service's new policy, begun on Earth Day, to start removing trash cans from sites along the George Washington Memorial Parkway -- including popular places such as the Iwo Jima memorial, Great Falls and Roosevelt Island -- essentially forcing visitors to take their empty water bottles, food wrappers and other trash with them when they leave.

This effort was part of the Park Service's "Trash Free Parks" initiative, which hopes to reduce the amount of garbage the government has to haul away. You could think of it as trying to empower the American people to do the right thing and not to rely on the federal government so much.

We were admittedly skeptical, thinking that folks were likely to just throw their trash on the ground if the cans were removed.

But Jon James, superintendent of the parkway, was more optimistic. "It's a mind-set shift," he told us, adding that the program has been successful in other parks, including Catoctin Mountain Park.

A Loop Fan who lives near the Iwo Jima memorial said trash and litter are often seen there since the cans were taken away. (He said the photo he sent as proof was taken the morning after a Marine Band concert on the grounds, so there was a bit more than usual, but it's nonetheless a constant problem.)

We talked trash Thursday with a National Park Service spokeswoman for this region. She told us that older,"well-established" programs have "an 80 to 95 percent success rate." So after a while park personnel only have to "deal with litter left behind by a small percentage."

Well, maybe a mind-set is a hard thing to shift very quickly in this area.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, even with a college degree, I didn't understand a word of what the parks folks had to say. But then, that's just me.


AFTERTHOUGHT: I SHOULD HAVE POINTED OUT . . .

. . . that even if we assume that this nutty scheme works, that people really are inspired to schlepp their trash out of Rector Street station and out of the parks, the amount of trash hasn't been reduced, it's just been offloaded onto somebody else's trash-collection budget.

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