Only in Mississauga I find this disgusting behaviour.
Why are people just openly littering. It never used to be like this. What happened ?
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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I assume littering is partially cultural (not everyone is raised to think littering is wrong) and also partially about opportunity (what reasonable alternatives did people have for waste disposal).
In terms of culture, you have to get them while they're young, with propaganda designed for children, like Mr. Rogers or Sesame Street.
In terms of opportunity: maybe when ordering a new drink, people are running out of free cup holders in their car and need to dispose of their morning coffee cup to make room for the new drink they just ordered, so making a trashcan available might make the most sense to reduce littering.
Sure, we can feel anger towards the individual litterbug (probably some of them know it's "wrong" to litter and could do more to avoid the need to litter - personally I would empty the liquid and then keep the trash cup in a plastic bag I keep for trash in the car), but it's more practical to address this as a social problem.
I think you nailed it with the trash cans. I have noticed there are fewer of them available lately. Are companies trying to avoid garbage removal fees or something?
I also keep a trash can in my car and empty itaybe monthly (I mainly throw away crushed plastic water bottles and napkins).
I started doing this when I realized nearly every public trash can at any fast food/breakfast/coffee shop/gas station was overflowing.
This builds a culture of IDGAF and people litter. Begs the question that part of the core issue is standardized reusable cups (8oz, 12oz, 16oz) maybe with a credit like $0.05 every time you use it? It would require a cup washing station.
I think most coffee shops would use your tumbler but idk what the process for cleaning it during your several coffee refills throughout the day.
hm, as a prior fast food worker, I can tell you the company is paying for the garbage removal regardless - they're going to end up paying an employee to go and pick up all that trash, and a trashcan would be more efficient in terms of labor hours and wages spent, so you would think the company has an incentive to optimize the flow of trash to reduce costs ...
This is just my speculation based on observation, but companies are rarely well-managed anymore, and solid business practices like optimizing to reduce expenses and focusing on generating profit through selling valuable products and services seems to be outmoded.
Instead it seems like more money is being made these days with grifts and scams (like intentionally creating an investment bubble through hype and then making money by shorting and leaving the gullible people who fell for the hype holding the bag). Crypto has become more attractive than oil stocks, for example. Fundamentals are disregarded, and more and more companies seem to act in irrational ways.
It's also corporate culture to blame the customers for the littering. Tim Hortons produces a disposable cup, and people are simply returning it to those responsible for creating it.
Apparently Coca Cola is one of the biggest plastic polluter in the world and they lobby against deposit return systems because it's cheaper for them to pass the responsibility to the consumers. If some countries are choking with littered plastic bottles, maybe the consumers are dropping them everywhere. But maybe the ones producing the bottles could also be seen as being responsible for not taking them back.
yes, the suppliers design the system consumers operate within, and then victim-blame the consumers when they live within that system
even worse, anti-littering campaigns were designed and funded by these large corporations to distract from actual environmental disasters like rising greenhouse gases and oil spills that were causing the real harm, and which were more directly caused by these corporations
* Personal carbon footprint intensifies *