How to Teach Your Kids to Litter

When I was 6, I learned to clean my room not because my mom told me to clean it, but because she didn't. As soon as my piles of stuff got in the way of my doll-playing agenda I promptly reformed my living habits.

Fast-forward 13 years and I am in New York City, a city at the cusp of a garbage disaster, where authorities are focusing on all the wrong issues. Despite recent progress in the city waste program, New Yorkers still are not grasping the entirety of the garbage situation. This is due in part to a misleading initiatives established by the Department of Sanitation.

The truth is that New Yorkers annually generate 1.29 tons of solid waste per capita. Because NYC closed the last of its 89 landfills in 2001, most of this garbage goes to Tullytown, PA, or an equally lucky town, where it is buried or burned. Manhattan's waste is sent to Newark, NJ, where it is incinerated.

The Department of Sanitation instated this system after passing the Local Solid Waste Management Plan (LSWMP) in July 2006, which will be fully operational by 2009. The plan is a revolutionary improvement for handling garbage within the city, even striving to recycle 70 percent of solid waste by 2015. The problem is that the plan is a waste-export system that contributes to pollution and upsets residents of small towns around NYC.

Despite the innovations the LSWMP has brought to NYC-like using barges instead of trucks-long-term garbage solutions like waste reduction are not being considered. We have taken a step in the right direction but now the emphasis is all wrong. A good example of the failed continuation of garbage progress is a new public-awareness campaign sponsored by the Sanitation Commissioner, John Doherty and his buddy Mayor Bloomberg. These fellows were active in formulating the LSWMP formulation, but their latest project is set to the tune of "Stomp Out Litter," once and for all.

The plan is charming, but let's think about it for a minute. We are in the middle of a garbage disaster and the two most influential men for garbage decisions in the city are focusing on litter? Sure, litter looks bad, but we have had a fairly effective street cleaning program since 1918.

Besides, what actually happens when an obedient little kid throws away his Popsicle wrapper? Even if we "stomp out litter" completely, that trash is not disappearing, it is just being sent out of Manhattan and into the air we breathe because of the new and imperfect garbage plan.

While I admire their commitment to a clean NYC, Doherty and Bloomberg may be doing the public a disservice by presenting litter pick-up as a social service while not confronting New Yorkers with the real problem, that we have too much waste and nowhere to put it except in someone else's back yard.

Even though NYC recycles 17 percent of solid waste and brings recycling services to over 3 million residences and institutions that are required by law to recycle, recycling is not a panacea. Most waste is unrecyclable, and recycling in NYC, according to a study by the Independent Budget Office, is actually more costly for the city than just throwing stuff out.

Yet, in facing the greatest obstacles in city waste management since ocean dumping ceased in 1898, after passing the far-from-perfect LSWMP, Doherty and Bloomberg had no problem moving on to trivial pursuits, like posting a list of anti-litter tips on the Department of Sanitation Web site including, "Tell your kids that garbage belongs in the garbage can, not on their street or sidewalk." The list did not include a single tip about waste reduction or how to recycle effectively. Basically these men are dodging the problem, causing New Yorkers to miss the point: that we need to continue improving our garbage strategies.

The 1968 garbage strike was effective because huge piles of refuse accumulated on the streets in the summer heat and nobody wanted to live in a landfill, so New Yorkers dealt with the sanitation worker's complaints. I think it is time to bridge the gap between our garbage and ourselves again. I say let's litter; let's explicitly remind ourselves of the situation we are getting into by not shipping off our waste. Maybe then we can be motivated to devise practical methods of waste reduction instead of patting ourselves on the back for throwing our garbage in the right trash can or recycling bin. We need to escape the construction of denial that plans like "Stomp Out Litter" facilitate.

Wake up and smell the putrid offal, New York: We are living in happy ignorance in a clean city while someone else lives with our mess.