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Dumping on 36th Street
07/24/2009 8:02 AM by John M
A reader writes in with warning about folks dumping stuff at the end of the 3600 block of East Broad Street:
When I got closer, I realized there was much more than just yard debris in the pile. They left a bucket, rake, huge garden hose, gloves, scraper, cardboard boxes, various pieces of fence post caps, weedeater parts, and other small trash. WHO DOES THAT???? […] They were driving a black Toyota Tacoma, regular cab, with VA Beach tags (the blue ones with a red light house).
Oh please, don’t get me started about the loser a-holes who dump (crap like this and worse) all over church hill. What KILLS ME is that we have a convenient dump right around the corner on the other side of Oakwood.
You’re simply experiencing the lazy-ass-“third-world church hill” behavior of some of the folks who live and work in this community…if those guys really live in VA Beach, that’s still no excuse. And we all know folks who live in Church Hill who do this crap and should know better.
Just take a drive down the west end of Cedar Street, toward Marshall @ the hill facing the Bottom behind Jefferson Park. There’s always a rash of debris dumped there and it’s been making us crazy for years.
You and I (and everyone else who gives a sh–) are justified in being pissed off, eventually we or the city has to clean this up, and that costs us time & money we could spend otherwise.
I’m glad you id’d the jerks who dumped on Broad…maybe we can tie them to a tree in Chimbo Park and trow trash at them for punishment.
I hate seeing people dump things anywhere myself. It’s not just a problem here but in the east end as a whole. I don’t see people dumping in the west end. It has to be class related. Behind Mosby Central along the hill you can see all kinds of things. I’m sure the northern Mosby also has stuff on its hill. I was driving to Candlewood Estates near Mechanicsville and Laburnum and someone had dumped along their road a sleeper sofa! Behind my aunt’s house a few blocks away all kinds of stuff gets dumped behind her house and it really steams her. No one seems to have pride in their neighborhoods and it seems as if there happens to be open space, a field, a forest, or a hill, then it must be a dump.
Kerri O’Brien with 8News will be looking at this today. Anybody interested in talking about this on camera hit me up at murden@gmail.com and I’ll forward her cell #.
Someone just threw a McDonalds bag out their car window in front of my house in Fulton while I was reading this. And the other day I witnessed another McDonalds bag thrown out of the window of a city bus that I was following down Government Rd.
Some people are just piggy, and don’t care. And it’s definitely a bummer.
I live across from a school and my yard is completely littered with candy wrappers, soda bottles, plastic bags, and all sorts of items. It drives me crazy. I have seen a take-home box of filled with greasy wing bones tossed right in my front yard.
I’ve noticed it a lot too. Fortunately, we have Harry who keeps our block immaculate, and for just a soda a day!
i guess it could be considered class-related as well as cultural. as far as i can tell, it comes from years and years of oppression, which builds into a kind of indifference to the world around you. after being treated like third-class citizens, if that, for so long, why should i care about where my trash goes, when none of this belongs to me? if it did belong to me, it would just get taken away, etc.
even though segregation was brought down in the 60s, it is not forgotten. these kinds of behaviors are learned. sometimes i don’t even know how the old timers in our neighborhood have become so friendly after all they must have seen and gone through.
i’m not being an apologist, just stating facts that we seem to forget about. it’s not just about trash.
It has nothing to do with oppression, it has nothing to do with poverty, it has to do with being stupid, nothing else.
What an interesting theory.
right on, ramzi
i can forgive the kids dropping a candy wrapper on the side walk, but adults, no way. they’re just being LAZY!
if i ever get shot in church hill, it will be because i asked some one to pick up the bag of mc’ds or chicken bones they just tossed out their car window.
this behavior has NOTHING to do with oppression…it’s a general lack of respect for other people’s neighborhoods.
the guys who dump and liter wouldn’t do it in their own front yard, or in their living rooms. but they have no problem dumping crap down the street.
gotta sign off now, must pick up empty beer can that was tossed into my front yard last nite.
I know why people throw trash from their vehicles. It’s because they don’t want to leave it in their cars. That’s just gross! Yeah. They simply don’t care where it ends up as long as they don’t have to deal with it.
It is not “cultural”. It is ignorance.
Ramzi, if it wasn’t obvious enough, my last comment was aimed at the one before yours. John seems to have put me on permanent “awaiting-moderation” status…
Nothing personal, every comment waits these days. The switch happened by accident, but the delay seemed cool folks off just enough to dull the worst tendencies so I’ve kept it.
When I worked at Havana in 97, one night I was walking up to work and found a lady getting ready to dump her car ashtray in the gutter. I stopped her, took it from her, brought it in the restaurant, and dumped it in the trash. When I brought it back out to her, she gave me a quarter.
Still kills me/cracks me up.
About 50% of all the litter I see around the City either comes from McDonalds or 7-11.
What are these multi-national corporations doing to help stop litter in Richmond, VA?
don’t you guys think that this “ignorance” has become cultural? in poor communities, being smart/going to school/getting out really isn’t the focus. perhaps it is for some (i don’t mean to generalize) but being poor is not fun at all. it builds an indifference to the world that includes even the smallest things, like throwing trash around. it’s lazy, sure, but it goes further than that. this is just a symptom.
maybe i don’t know anything at all, but when i see someone doing something dumb, i try to look several stages/steps beyond what they’ve just done, to try and track where their actions came from. it’s really easy to write everything off as laziness, or simple stupidity. the people that do this really don’t seem to care about how such an act effects their community, which leads me to believe that this goes a bit deeper than just being dumb.
we all have our theories, though, and could go on forever on this blog, which we probably will. just try to look further than just ignorance and laziness next time. it’s too simple.
Some people do this…
Some people do that…
Neither is the lesser in the end, for both facilitate the means to each others ends(figuratively not terminally).
Without both… the balance is lost.
Stop blame shifting, and just pick the garbage up if you don’t want it on your block. This includes talking to the people, who contribute to the trash, directly when it happens.
If someone is willing to confront your, controlled and cool expression of “don’t leave your trash on my street,” just take a step back, don’t panic, and re-evaluate your situation. If you feel threatened… you should already have a plan for what to do.
Should you not feel threatened, you should still remain calm and assert your position that “this type of action is disrespectful.” From there you have said, and done, all that can be said, and you will most likely still have to pick up the trash.
But asserting yourself, in a rational and calm manner, is something few do these days. It’s OK to call people out. If they are different than you, that doesn’t mean that they don’t get embarrassed the same way as you do. People know when they are wrong, and most will be humbled through humiliation. It’s the few, that lash out in anger or fear, that skew the perception of the group, if any exists, as a whole.
Treat each person as an individual… the same way you expect to be treated.
Good luck.
I thought I was beyond reaction but this stirred me up. It is partially due to ignorance but mostly due to lack of respect. These people are on the lower Mazelow levels. It’s part of their survival. Those who think they can get rid of trash by dumping it out of their cars into the streets, throwing stuff over fences and leaving it in lots don’t give a damn. They don’t want it so throw it out. Anywhere. They don’t consider whose property they’re trashing or who sees it, or God forbid, who cleans it up. Not in their vocabulary. They don’t care, not just don’t think. Up the littering fines and enforce them. Get neighbors to report them (good luck). Until then keep cleaning up what bothers you. I have for 3 years.
Charge littering fines.
Littering is a huge pet peeve of mine and I speak up..
use my favorite line:
Hey buddy, I think you dropped something!
I’m like UnionHillRVA- This is the thing most likely to get me shot by one of our “poor oppressed victim litterbugs”
gimmie a break..
RE: 22 – Yeah, the “Ya dropped something, but I’ll get it for you!!” has worked well for me, too. Big smile, being helpful, of course. The reactions are none of my business, really, although some have been pretty interesting.
But for the record, I’ve never felt like I was about to get shot.
@23, i occasionally get the opportunity to do what 19 recommends: once it involved 4 young guys in an shiny white Escalade (and #18, these guys did NOT look poor,) they were pissed off i called em on their shit and embarrassed them in front of other folks on the street…for a moment, i was pretty scared and my heart raced.
@ 20, i so DO NOT buy into the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs as an explanation of the behavior i see among people who are too lazy to walk 20 paces to the trash can.
i work on a block where some of the poorer folks in our community stroll by often one of those “poor folk” will say, “thanks, you keep this block real clean”.
these folks are less well off financially than I, but they appreciate living in a neighborhood where some of the blocks are relatively litter free for a few hours a day.
so, this has NOTHING to do with simply being poor. some of the poorer folks i know (in CH-UH) have the tidiest yards and the cleanest homes. they may not have central air and a remodeled home, but they care about their neighborhood and respect it enough not to trash it.
for the record, i do think the “broken window” theory applies to street, alley & park trash. the consistently cleaner a block is, the less it gets trashed. but you can’t abandon it once you get started…it really becomes a life-long commitment.
Being poor has nothing to do with it.
It’s certainly not just poor folk. Ever walk around the neighborhoods around VCU? Yes, VCU keeps its campus pretty clean, but the students think the City around them is made for them to litter in it. The commuter students regularly clean out their cars while parking and leave the trash in gutter or along the curbs.
This is a mindset that the VCU administration and student government need to address.
#24 same here. Not everyone who is poor is a victim or has some ingrained social indifference – this is one of the most arrogant assumptions people make. Some just don’t have money. It certainly does not mean that they don’t care if their neighborhood looks like a garbage can.