Looking for suggestions on dealing with a litter problem.
May 18, 2018 5:09 PM   Subscribe

Anonymous litter like used food packaging has been appearing in the yard and waste bins, and it's not a new development. It's been going on for months. It's not all blown in; there's definitely some activity in the area when the home owner isn't present.

I personally don't think the problem's going away, though there are people who want it to stop. Maybe there's a fair reason why the litter is showing up where it is but it's not in my power to decide what's what.

Restricting access to the bin isn't going to fix matters, I think. The litter simply becomes a part of the yard. So ... because of that, I'm wondering what reasonable ways there are to deal with the problem and maybe pass on any suggestions.

Thanks.
posted by redrawturtle to Home & Garden (11 answers total)
 
Wait. Waste in your yard is definitely litter, but are you also complaining that people are throwing things away in your bin? Is that really littering? Or do I misunderstand?
posted by uberchet at 5:24 PM on May 18, 2018


If people are getting upset about passers-by disposing of their doritos bags and soda bottles and whatnot in your outdoor trash can, I feel like maybe they just need to think about something else, honestly. I mean, it's a hell of a lot better than just dropping them on the ground, it harms nobody, and hey sometimes it's hard to find an official public trash can when you need one.

As for the litter in the yard, the only solution is for whoever lives there to just pick it up from time to time. If you live in a city (or even just a town) you're gonna get trash in your yard sometimes. It's just a fact of life in modern society. Just bag it up and put it in the bin, I mean what's the alternative? It's part of general upkeep, like raking and mowing.

I feel like I'm missing something here, can you maybe provide a little more detail? Because otherwise these problems just seem like seriously minor living-around-other-people things.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:22 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


Best answer: And hey I'm sorry if my answer above comes off as a little incredulous and/or shaming. I'm just a little bewildered and genuinely unsure if I'm understanding the question correctly.

However, if this truly is just a sincere question about what to do about passers-by leaving their pocket trash in your bins and sometimes in your yard, my sincere answers are A: don't worry about it and B: pick it up and throw it away. No big deal!
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 6:42 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I've lived in cities with bag/bin limits for garbage. Is a neighbour dumping in your bins to get around the additional bag fees, stealing your garbage disposal services (and making you take out their garbage)? If so, I'd lock the bin and call the city for advice.

There's little to be done about litter in the yard. Even if you fence it high enough that people can't toss, stuff will still blow in.
posted by windykites at 7:16 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Just a comment about the food wrappers, this doesn't help get rid of them but I notice around my house we get them because crows are bringing them here to investigate them. They may not be being dumped by people if you have crows around.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 7:21 PM on May 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


I get food wrappers strewn in my yard. In my case, it’s raccoons, dragging it from a dumpster.
posted by musicinmybrain at 7:48 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: If people litter because trash management is a pain, like having to drive to the dump, that's hard to combat. In my town, trash goes in a bag you buy from the town. When you put trash in the barrel, loose, I have to snag it and put it in a bag, and if it's been rained on or has food waste, it's not pleasant, and attracts critters. When I lived in town, we got a fair amount of litter, which is rude. Littering is antisocial. At one point, someone who worked nearby ate lunch in their vehicle parked outside my house, and just threw the trash out the window because WTF? I made a Please Don't Litter sign, which, surprisingly, worked for that particular litterer.

Put up a sign. Can't hurt. Consider putting out a medium-size bin for waste. Picking up litter is a drag, but dealing with it may be a hazard of where you live.
posted by theora55 at 8:21 PM on May 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


Coyotes are another possibility depending on where you live, as far as how litter might end up in the yard, in addition to the birds/raccoons mentioned above. Or it could just be people littering.

But it sounds like part of the complaint is about people dumping trash in the trash bin, which honestly isn't something I would even notice. Is there a reason this is an issue? Like, is it taking up too much space or something? I'm not sure there's much to be done either way, although you could try putting up signs.

You could also put up a sign about the litter being left in the yard, but if animals are dragging the litter in, obviously a sign won't help, and I think any person who is careless enough to toss trash onto the ground isn't the kind of person who will care if you have a "please don't litter" sign.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:53 PM on May 18, 2018


I live next to a busy recreational trail that doesn't have many public trash bins, and if we pull our trash bins out to the curb too early the night before trash pickup, we get a lot of people dumping their trash in our bin. The problem with that is that the trash from passers-by is loose inside our bin, not in a tied-up trash bag, and our local trash company will not take any loose trash that isn't tied up in a bag, and we get fined by the town if it happens too much, so we just try to keep our bins put away until the last minute, and not visible to passers-by.

It's not clear whether you're talking about your property or a neighbor's property, though - and if it's the latter and the neighbors aren't always there, they may want to hire somebody to come by every so often specifically to deal with this trash situation. If nothing else, other homeowners in the neighborhood will probably complain to them that they're making the neighborhood look bad and peer pressure them into doing something about it.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 10:15 PM on May 18, 2018 [3 favorites]


has no one yet said: "put a camera on it!" ?
posted by at at 1:01 AM on May 19, 2018 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers! (And sorry for being late!)
posted by redrawturtle at 7:47 PM on August 6, 2018


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