Litterbugs

[Cooter]

Seems there are plenty of (words I can't use on this site) fishermen in the Eau Claire area who have no problem carrying full containers of crawlers, beer, cigarettes, etc. to their fishing spot but can't seem to find the strength to carry those empty, lighter, crushed, etc. containers back out with them. Talk about make me mad - and sick. Dirty corklickers

[upnorth]

They ain't just around Eau Claire Those same dam slobs exist all over the place, and I have seen much worse than that

Musta been born in the basement and never brought up!!

[Riverratpete]

I for one can never understand peoples lasiness about picking up after themselves...I can understand alot and am a very tolerant person but people who just leave trash/pollute, have the energy to drink their beer/pop but not the energy to take it with them, etc...drives me nuts

[kevfish]

not making excuses for those litter bugs but one thing that has always bothered me is the amount of public accesses around my area that have no trash can at the public landing- I think that would stop alot of the littering and not cost alot of money

[Northlander]

Kevfish it dont matter if ya have 20 cans. If they arent right next to some people they will just toss their junk in the bushes. I do agree that cans will help for some but for a few it just dont matter. they dont care and they probably have a house full of trash as well.

[ozzie]

I agree kevfish. I came off Mille Lacs the other day and was amazed that there wasn't a single garbage can!! They had bathrooms but no garbage can.

[gunflint]

I'm sure the reason that there's no cans is that they would be filled up instantly with bags of garbage from cabin owners,etc.

We have to lock our dumpsters up, not so much for the bears but because the summer home owners, cabin owners and campers would fill them up daily if we didn't.

I think that the responsibility for keeping an area clean belongs to those who bring the garbage in the first place.

[nitroant]

The reason most landings do not have garbage facilities is exactly as stated above. They were being abused by the local residents and the cabin and camper owners. Its too bad because it leads the the litter problem. My big peeve on Mille Lacs was the locals that use the dock at the landing as their own personal sun deck. Put your lawn chairs on shore, people need the docks to load and offload their boats.

[SCUMFROG]

I've seen people toss cans in the grass right next to the trash can (with in a foot.) and just walk away. I did stop this "kid" and make him pick it up. It might not have been right but after he picked it up we (me and several other adults) told him and his friends the importance of keeping our nation/world clean. I hope it sunk in.

[chucker34]

"it dont matter if ya have 20 cans. If they arent right next to some people they will just toss their junk in the bushes."

I agree. If they don't care about the welfare of the lake/river now, why would thy when you put some cans there? We bring a small garbage bag or plastic grocery bag along everytime we go out for cut lines, cans, wrappers, etc. Just stow it in one of the compartments of your boat. Not too hard.

Too bad about the seasonal cabin owners. We live on the lake year round and pay about $12 a month for a garbage can/trash service. I'd think if you could afford a cabin and the land taxes, you could afford that for 4-5 months of the year.

[EBass]

Trash is everywhere. It sucks! I already picked up some plastic bait bags, fishing line, hunks of foam from a bait bucket and even a busted plasitc cooler out of the sippi on pool 2. This was just the floating stuff. I'm sure the popular shore spots are trashed. No pun intended.

[kevfish]

dont know about in your area but where i live if it can be proved that you are depositing household trash in a public trash can you sre given a ticket for unlawfull deposit of trash. Start handing a few of these tickets out and it sure takes care of most of the problems in a hurry.

[ZapBranigan]

I think this problem seems to have growen since the price of hauling trash went way up in the early 80's. To combat the dumpers from dumping their every day trash they had to remove the barrels. For quite awhile it seemed to be getting better. Then like a cycle it took a nosedive back to the worst.

Aarrgh I have no good answer. Honostly take it home.

[The Grebe]

Kev...Once I seen a guy out at Valley Fair, just drop a greasy old pork chop on a stick leavings, right in the middle of the walk, when a trash container was no more then 2 feet away! Somebody could have broke their neck, do you think he cared?

These litterbug crumbs have been brought up that way and I don't believe they can be changed? It is'nt only urban and suburban people either, I've seen and known locals from areas out of town that are just as nasty as anyone, when it comes to littering.

On the subject of providing trash containers, it is a noble, but not new idea that in theory should work, but litterbugs don't care about trash cans anyways and responsible people take their trash out with them when they leave.

Also, someone has to empty them and they won't do it for free, who pays them? If it comes out of the tax payers pockets, they are'nt going to like paying for someone elses garbage removal! And those recepticles in high trash areas fill up in a hurry! It's a nasty situation no matter how you look at it.

I figure that if there is just one thing that you could teach someone to make them an all around better person, it would be not to litter. I believe that if they could be taught the responsibility of that, the rest would fall into place!

[kevfish]

a trash can would at least keep the honest ones honest. I have seen several times someone driving down the road and trash blowing out of their boat or back of their pick-up- maybe some of this would have used the trash can. The key word being "Some". If they added trash pick up on our taxes i would think it would be very minimal. Look at the groups that volunteer to pick up trash in the ditches and around lakes- maybe they could put there efforts into dumping the trash cans- alot less work i would think

[icecold]

And I thought I was the only one thats gets p.o.ed about the litter; I fish the river alot and there is always these young punks that fish this sandbar and leave there beer bottles and you name it lay on the bar, Also they are minors so I cant punch them yet?? I know the onwer real well, But I think he is scared of retaliation or something, I wish I could do something , Somedays its such a eyesore that I dont even fish, I just pick up trash, JUST HAD TO VENT

[WAG416]

How about the discarding of unwanted rockbass or sheepheads on the river edge. Mmmmmmmmmm Smells real good after a couple of days. Some people have no respect.

Quote:

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But I think he is scared of retaliation or something, I wish I could do something

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You can do something. Those kids will continue to do it until someone makes an effort to stop them. If there is any retaliation, Authorites know who to look for first.

WAG

[M.T. Bucket]

The litter thing just burns me

I spent an entire summer cleaning public accesses and let me tell you, there are just people out there who think the whole world is their trash can. We would clean up dump sites all the time. It was never a problem to get a pickup load of trash after stopping at maybe 15 accesses--many of these being little, out of the way spots, not just you're heavy use places.

What kind of stuff did we REGULARLY find while picking up?

used diapers, rotten deer carcasses (usually right on the ramp), rotten dog carcasses, rotten beaver carcasses, rotten pig carcasses (once, not fun to remove), bags of guts from deer season, used condoms (lots--use a stick to pick these up ), entire 12 packs worth of smashed bottles, hygiene products, every shade of pornography out there, appliances, bags of household trash, human feces (often right in the parking lot or a couple of times right on the boat ramp), and of course lots of Mickey D's bags, fishing line, hooks, beer cans, minnow bags, worm cartons, Mountain Dew bottles, cigarette boxes

Oh yeah, and once someone burnt down the outhouse.

You want to take your kid fishing and you have to worry about what kind of disgusting/dangerous stuff your kid might run into. It's really a shame this dump goes on. I'm sure these guys doing this consider themselves 'sportsmen' or 'fishermen', but that's just a bunch of talk. There's more to being a fisherman than catching fish.

There are a number of reasons for there being no trash cans at accesses:

- you have to have someone empty all of those containers regularly (some counties have hundreds of accesses and many of those cans could fill in less than a week)

- many people don't use them anyway

- at accesses where there are trash cans, often people put food (uh, bears, duh) in them, bring household trash, or fill them with all of the trash in the cab of their vehicles

- some (Contact US Regarding This Word) steal them, smash them, turn them over, throw them in the lake...(Contact US Regarding This Word) are real creative

The lack of a garbage can is certainly no excuse for not taking your trash home. Personally I take it home anyway so I know it gets recycled.

There are a few solutions, unfortunately none of them deals with the root of the problem, (Contact US Regarding This Word).

- biodegradable bait containers (or just bring your own); I can't believe you can still get plastic and styrafoam worm cups. I'll pay the extra nickle for my day's bait if bait shops will switch to something that won't float in a river of lay on a bank for the next couple of years. When are we fisherman going to get sick of these things?

- bring a shopping bag with you when you're out and pick up a couple of pieces of trash; I know, you shouldn't have to, it shouldn't be there in the first place, but it is, so why not make things a little better for the next family? My son (he hates litter worse than I do) and I make it a game (though I made strict rules for him about what he is allowed to pick up)

- we need to foster a better attitude toward the environment; When I was a kid, there were some pretty aggressive anti-litter campaigns and our roads and rivers were better for it. In these days of budget cuts and all the other dump, I can't remember the last time I heard the ol' "Give a hoot..." line. If we care about this, we should be educating kids on this stuff. Through school, 4-H...who cares, right? If we don't, these kids will copy what they see their (Contact US Regarding This Word) parents doing--tossing the bottle 2' from the trash can, leaving the propane cylinder on the ice, crapping on the boat ramp (ewww...)

- increase penalties; people do get caught dumping and people do get caught littering. You know what happens to them? Not much more than if they park facing the wrong way on the street. Minnesota has a somewhat stiff penalty (that's never enforced as strictly as it could be, some get caught dumping and there is no punishment), but other states have hardly any penalties. What's with that? Is there some litterbug lobby out there?

I have a conspiracy theory I won't insert here.

Anyway, the long-winded rant is due to my entirely negative experiences in this subject. I don't know how anyone can litter, especially to the excesses I've cleaned up, in such a beautiful state. I don't even think the trash at the accesses is the worst--someone will pick that up--it's the trash along the rivers and trails, dumping sites in the mine pits, plastic bottles and miscellaneous debris tossed under deer stands, and completely abused private lands that become tax forfeit public lands that bother me most because it's unlikely any of that stuff will be cleaned up.

[pikerliker]

Just recently I was fishing a popular shore spot in a lake East of Mankato. In about a 30ft span of lakeshore I picked up enough garbage to overflow a 5 gallon pail! In 30ft of lakeshore!! I was disgusted but I couldn't walk away and leave all that garbage there so I played their "momma" and picked up after them. It's all about respect.

~piker

[vikingtom]

Lakes ain't the only place. I was at Mikey D's and a guy and gal 10 feet from a garbage can just open the car door and sat the trash on the ground. I walked up and said since you're so lasy I'll throw it away litter bugs. They just stared at me.

[HoleHopper]

I know of a few lakes in the metro that would have there trash cans filled in a half day if the state supplied them. When the state did, (just two years ago) peaple just kept pileing there trash even when there was no more room to put it. You would think that they would say to themselves (Gee its full, maybe I'd better take my trash with me????) but nooooo, they would rather have the taxpayer flip the tab by letting the state pick up all the heaped up trash that didnt fit in the can.

I know I for one am not in faver of supplying garbage cans that need to be emptied every day on the taxpayers dallars just becouse there a few that choose to be discusting slobs or just choose not to use ther head. Sence when did it become the responcibility of the state to haul our trash away from boat landings? Or would some be in faver of user fees at landings to pay for it?

How hard can it be, to just take it with you?

There will always be litterbugs, (if that is what you want to call them)and there will always be the seen and unseen heroes that do just a little extra every once in a while. It is those that I commend and respect!

[Riverratpete]

I like that idea of a advertising campaign, put posters at all public launches, at least let the slobs know other people are watching..public pressure should have some effect. I kind of put the whole slob thing in the same catagory as the people who have a trash filled yard (you know, the couch in the front yard), home, car etc..just plain lazy.

[mpester]

Two litter things make me nuts during ice fishing season. First, the trash left on the ice is bad. Even more irritating are the (Contact US Regarding This Word) who take the time to pick up their trash but then stop on shore at the empty place where the bathrooms go during the summer to dump the trash. They made the effort to keep the trash off the lake but then dump it on shore for someone else. Why not take it home? The access on Green Lake was three or four feet deep in trash near the end of the ice season.

[CanOCorn]

Just yesterday on Prior Lake, picked up 2 Bud Light cans, 5 styroafoam packing peanuts, and a Holiday foam coffee cup that I watched the guy drop and just leave it there. I said something to him when I pulled 20 feet away from him to pick it up as it drifted away from his boat but it didn't even phase him.

[tdk]

A couple of years ago we got out on the north shore of Winnie(anybody that has fished there knows that there isn't a cabin for miles) and it was a shame to see what was there. You couldn't take a step without hitting a cigarette butt. It was that way as far as we walked. About made me sick. My own brother said after I jumped on him about it said that they were biodegradable. Yeah right in about 40 years. It's amazing what you see people throw out of boats.