Listen to this article on YouTube
In many parts of California, the streets and sidewalks are piled high with garbage. As it is my hometown state, I should know. On a heavy day, a relaxing walk can quickly turn into one in which you’re dodging debris almost at random. You might find yourself jumping over cartons and dried dogshit, while trying not to let that food wrapper coil itself around your calf. If one stands on a high spot above downtown Los Angeles, they might mistake the city for the world’s largest landfill.
Suppose you’re inside of this landfill, and with trash in hand. The natural thing to do would be to throw the trash on the ground right below your feet. The action would be as carefree as if you had walked up to a waste container.
This perception stems not only from the experience of living and sloshing and mucking through these streets; indeed, studies show that some of the dirtiest cities in the US can be found in California. So if you were so convinced that you were inside of a genuine landfill, the urge to throw your trash on the ground would likely be forgiven by everyone unpersuaded by delusionary labels, like that of the “Golden State.”
Of course, California is neither a “golden state” nor a giant landfill. Instead, it’s a semi-Communistic hellhole, as well as being an enervated limb on the body of America. Luckily, I’ve recently fled that horrible place, making for the greener and freer (and hotter) pastures of Arizona. But, alas, every month I must make a weekend-long return to my former state, per court orders.
For years, living in California, I’ve been an avid litterer. It’s a bit of a reflex. I didn’t really think of it at all, aside from the quickest of glances to see if the police were around. It’s done with such ease: trash in hand; trash on the ground; walk or drive away. And my conscience doesn’t ring with the faintest twinge of guilt.
However, recently my littering habit has been much more deliberate — something I do as an act of rebellion, disgust, and hatred. Since I can’t burn the whole state down, the most I can do is saturate the streets with my wrappers, bags, and bottles. In the back of my mind, I believe that every little scrap gets me that much closer to seeing the state’s total downfall. So instead of merely tossing the trash casually onto the ground, these days I throw it down fiercely, as though I were bludgeoning the whole society with my refuse. Immature? Sure it is, but such are the times we’re living in, when decorum, likewise, has also been discarded down the gutter.
As an addict, I can rationalize my habit several different ways. For instance, soon after making the move, I would always ceremoniously toss a few items out my window immediately upon crossing the border. But now I figure that: nobody would see it in the desert. There’s so little out here; small towns and trucker outposts. And why blemish land that has yet to be desecrated by the building of metropolises? Therefore, I now wait until I arrive in the counties of, first San Bernardino, and then Los Angeles. Then the trash flows out of my windows as if the garbage collector had forgotten to close up his container.
This compromise was still met with disapproval. My family didn’t like it. Friends on Facebook and in real life both offered strong criticisms. Impenitently, I would then resort to charging them with bigotry, telling them that, as a native Californian, this was just part of my culture. “How dare you insult my culture!” I would retort. It’s said that all cultures should be respected, so why shouldn’t the California culture?
But my critics do have one valid point: my trash does not stay in the gutters and streets; it flows out into the ocean — the Pacific Ocean, for those who have never seen a map. And what do the fish have to do with my private beef?
Unlike sewage — what goes down your sinks and toilets — stormwater is not treated or cleaned. One can think of “stormwater” every time you look underneath a curb and see a storm drain: what goes down there eventually ends up in the ocean. The onus to keep it free of debris, therefore, is on…well, me. And you. And the homeless guy you just saw, whose condition you’ll blame on capitalism. After all, when the homeless litter, it’s only a chain reaction stemming from external circumstances far out of our control.
Depressing facts also start adding up. In 2016, the United States generated the most waste in the whole world. According to a report by the Associated Press about a study published in Science Advances, between 2.7% and 5.3% of that waste was mismanaged — “not burned, place in landfills or otherwise disposed of properly.” Plastic products seem to be the main focus here, because, while plastic is ostensibly recyclable, many plastic products never get recycled. Yet we live in a plastic world. Plastic — which is oil — is ubiquitous, and is perhaps why the average person consumes thousands of plastic particles every year.
The same study in Science Advances estimated that some 560,000 to 1.6 million tons of U.S. plastic waste “likely” finds its way into our oceans, making the U.S. the third worst “plastic polluter.” The U.S. used to export a great deal of its plastic waste over to China, but a few years back, the Chinese prohibited dirty plastics, that as a way to scale back its own pollution. Now we’re trying to dump our trash onto Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, according to the SierraClub.
All of this garbage has to led to the freakish creation known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a massive island of trash, twice the size of Texas, which floats adrift in our oceanic beyond. This is a monstrous testament to mankind’s endless producing and consuming and disposing. As for my homestate, communities in California try to do their part by spending roughly half a million dollars a year — collectively — to clean up the streets and gutters, per a 2013 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Guilt at last: I have participated in the destruction of the ecosystem! Yet no matter how much Californians are bilked, their tax dollars will never buy a shovel or mop large enough to clean up all the trash they throw on the ground. So, again, the responsibility is largely on us, the public. Suddenly, the old adage echoes in my mind like an empty beer can tossed down an alley: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” This means bettering one’s self, which is right in line with my brand of anarchism.
Well, believe me when I tell you that I have not littered one single time in my new state. This is because I have respect for Arizona, the streets of which are comparatively cleaner. It’s a different class of citizens, I reason. Then why can’t I help myself in California? Why does the “imaginary line” turn me into a Mr. Hyde? The gutters almost cry out for my garbage. The state is just so moribund. Leaving trash on these streets is a lot like taking the wristwatch off the corpse of your worst enemy. I could try to control myself, but even if I had properly disposed of my trash, it would make no dent in the damage that’s already done.
So who should start cleaning California up? As mentioned a second ago, the homeless situation in California is dreadful, as the state has the third highest rate of homelessness in the country. Homeless encampments are notorious for their abundance of garbage, and if the authorities and green thumbs really cared about the littering issue, they would want to clean out those many encampments.
Heartlessness! Heresy! Those are human beings! Where would we put them? I’m not completely sure, but wherever it is, it would likely be cheaper than what we’re currently spending on cleaning up the oceans.
In fact, the effort seems to be the inverse: that they’re trying to produce more waste in the streets. Consider the mask mandates. When the pandemic started, California was one of the first to implement lockdowns — and mask mandates. Two years later, masks are still required for most indoor settings.
The results? No need for Sherlockian powers of deduction. Disposable facemasks are now found all over the coastal regions. A December 2021 report from EcoWatch tells us that “disposable face masks littered in the environment increased by nearly 9,000 percent from March to October 2020.” The masks, too, are made from plastic. Some 29,000 tons of this stuff is estimated to be floating in the world’s oceans. Don’t be surprised if Anthony Fauci tells us that those masks are helping to keep the sealife safe from the virus.
“Then just throw your masks in the trashcan,” I’ll then hear. If masks have any utility whatsoever — which I now doubt — then they should probably be worn once and then thrown away. Imagine how many masks one would go through in a day, or a week. Has the state unleashed an army of mask-collectors onto the streets? I don’t think it has. If its inconvenient for them to pick it up, it’s more convenient for me to throw it down. Likewise, for everyone else. Maybe I’ll just start identifying as a homeless man, that way all my littering will be excused away.
KM Patten is the Arizona correspondent for Stairway Press. Through his activism and essaying, he tries to keep his new state free. An anarchist in the tradition of William Godwin, Patten has published one book, Indictments from the Convicted. Buy it on Amazon.
