One idea I'm toying with is to collect all the debris I find on a given block or in a particular park and push it together, creating a pile. Piles command attention.
I wouldn't have created any trash in the process, but, by virtue of having picked stuff up and put it down again, would I have littered? Could I be ticketed? Is it worse for one person to drop 100 pieces of trash than for 100 people each to drop one piece?
I'm seeking answers from Solid Waste Management (whose Web site says much about collecting large quantities of trash but nothing about garden-variety litter) and my councilwoman. Meanwhile I asked my Facebook friends if picking up a piece of trash only to drop it again (or nudging a piece of trash with my foot so that it moves but never leaves the ground) would constitute littering. The answers thus far:
- Yes
- Yes
- I don't think either one is littering because you didn't generate the trash, but it's still really EVIL.
- I think law enforcement would be justified in fining you for littering... like THAT ever happens.
My Facebook friends aren't public defenders but they're smart and it seems like we've all got the same impression: moving a mess is illegal while creating one, or walking past one without touching it, is not.
If I go ahead with this project, the one thing I will for sure be guilty of is succumbing to the impulse to dive into a tactic -- the mark of a social-marketing amateur. But this is something that's concerned me for years, and might even form the basis for (drumroll please) a new nonprofit. First step: determine how the community has expressed its view of litter via the law.
The problem is obviously not unique to Denver, but this is where I live so this is where I'm starting.
Hmm, I think you're allowed to push it around, just not take possession. Similar to how you're allowed to handle a ball in soccer. Maybe you could even use a broom?
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