New Neighborhood, Same Hobby

So I've moved to yet another Baltimore neighborhood, but like many urban neighborhoods I get frustrated by the litter I see when I walk around. Took a couple hours this afternoon and walked up and down the street picking up litter.

Results:

Given that my new neighborhood is a lot nicer than my old one it took a lot longer to pick up this much garbage. I did learn a few things about my neighborhood's litter patterns. Looks like a lot of the litter is due to single serving or individually wrapped junk food and discarded student bus passes. As you move farther from the middle/high school, the litter transitions to discarded take-out remnants and convenience store garbage. Litter peaked near the intersection with the main thoroughfare, likely because this is where vehicular douchebags have the most time to litter.

Overall, a much more pleasant experience than picking up garbage in my old neighborhood, where the overgrown city-owned property could fill up a garbage bag in 10 yards of deep cleaning. The only real problem I'm going to have is when my girlfriend gets home and discovered that our garbage can is completely full and we can't empty our own kitchen garbage can until Wednesday morning...

I actually believe that the biggest problem is that this is a long, well-travelled block with no public garbage receptacles. I'll have to see if I can call the city and have one put up. I think that the majority of litter is a crime of inopportunity - a combination of lots of foot traffic, single-serve junk food, and no garbage cans.

Admittedly, this is a pretty weak blog post, but after months of inactivity it's time to get back to writing about things that seem interesting.