They just don't care anymore...

H Street NE clean up, March 2004.

I have really been caught by the idea that if your processes are broken, you're not likely to yield quality decisions, and quality results. For the most part, I think this can be extended across the board to almost any situation, even litter.

Yesterday and today make up the 19th Annual Potomac Watershed Cleanup Day. (Being very sick, I was unable to participate.).

This quote:

But Monty Tech Junior ROTC member Robert Tremblay, whose group joined the cleanup for a community service requirement, pointed out the reality of the situation. The 18-year-old said people think it's someone else's job to throw their trash away once they're done using it. "They just don't care anymore," the 18-year-old said.

is from "150 take part in city cleanup," from the Fitchburg (MA) Sentinel and Enterprise. Also from the article:

Volunteers removed roughly 16 tons of trash found in the city's Ward 4 Saturday, during the first part of the sixth annual Civic Clean-Up Corps, according to Ward 4 City Councilor Ted E. DeSalvatore. ...

"People are thanking us," said Christopher S. Reed, program director of Clean Streets Inc., a group of environmentalists. "We just want a clean place to live." Six young employees from Clean Streets Inc., which formed in January, helped collect roughly 20 bags of trash behind the Elm Street apartment.

Hmm, Clean Streets Inc. and the Civic Clean-Up Corps are a couple projects to find out more about.

Yesterday's Baltimore Sun had an interesting and I think slightly under thought out letter to the editor, "Stigma impedes litter cleanup," on the same general topic:

"You have orange jumpsuits for us to wear, too?" This is what a 16-year-old asked me when I explained that the Banner Neighborhoods Art Club, a program made up of 15 artists ages 9 to 20, would be spending its routine Thursday session doing something not so routine - picking up trash in the streets ("Readers toss out slogan ideas to inspire tidiness," March 20).

When I read that Mayor Sheila Dixon was looking for a new anti-litter campaign, I thought it would be a great project for our art club. To connect our ideas to direct action, I decided we should hit the streets. So when we took a walk to inspect the site of a future mural, I proposed that we pick up trash along the way - 20 pieces each - as a way of earning a special pizza party.

The reaction I got is indicated by the quote I cited above. The kids were very reluctant to be seen picking up trash in the neighborhood, especially in a group, apparently because of the stigma that it carries in many communities: It signifies that you've done something wrong and are being punished.

We need to address this aspect of Baltimore's culture if we're ever going to change the habits of its residents.

Eric Imhof
Baltimore
The writer is a program coordinator for Banner Neighborhoods, a community organization working in Southeast Baltimore.

The point is to get the process right. As I mention from time to time, in Japan schools don't have custodians. The children are responsible for cleaning the school. And because of this they develop from a very young age the sense that they are responsible for cleaning their own messes. It's one of the many ways that Japan builds a culture with a sense of responsibility to others.

The point is to get the process right. So many of the processes in our cities and our nation are broken.

Also see:
-- How is this idea $5,000 better or more effective than mine? (DC Appleseed)
-- Every Litter Bit Hurts.