Litterbugs :-(

Triathlon Forum
1

After reading some of the reports in the Disney 1/2 thread…

How many of you are litterbugs? C’mon…man or girl up to the bar…do you drop your trash during races or training? How many of you see it happen on group rides and don’t say anything to the offender?

Yes, I said offender. Beside being illegal, littering is highly offensive and harmful to the beautiful world we live in. Part of the reason I like multisport is that it gets me outdoors…a feeling that is ruined when I spy trash…particularly that which is most likely from others like me…I am angered and saddened when running remote trails and coming across gel packets, gatorade bottles, etc…

How many of you call out others you see littering? I have been known to do a stoplight dash and hand back a still smoking cigarette butt or soft drink cup to the offending car driver…

During races there is NO excuse for littering. There are designated zones for exchanging bottles in longer races like Disney. If necessary, you can cast off your used gel/bar wrappers as well…otherwise, stuff them in your singlet pocket and race on…

Folks, the world is not our personal garbage can…show some respect and maturity…keep it clean.

2

I was just getting ready to start this thread after reading about litter at Disney. The Assault on Mt. Mitchell just came through my neck of the woods, and the Blue Ridge Parkway is littered with wrappers. Its disgusting. That being said I also witnessed many people at GCT littering. Im amazed at how self important litterbugs are.

3

I was out for a ride recently and pulled up beside a car. The driver tossed his cigerette butt out the open window on the road. I said, " Excuse me, you dropped something". He said %&^*-off, gave me the finger and sped off!

Fleck

4

all too common unfortunately…

5

Littering in general is one of my biggest pet peeves. Whether people are racing or training, whether they are diving or walking, how hard can it be to take your trash home?
In the part of Germany where I grew up people are limited to how much trash they can produce and beyond that they have to pay the city more money. That in return encourages people to recycle and take all their recyclables to a recycling center. Because after all they don’t want recyclables to take up the space in their trash can.
And if people litter, the fines are enormous.
Here I see people on a regular basis throwing their fast food containers/wrappers out wherever they please and dumping their ashtrays at intersections.
It drives me crazy.
Herbert

6

In Singapore they will literally spank you for spraying graffiti (another form of littering). Gotta love it.

7

What gets me is that people think if they drop something during a race they don’t need to pick it up. Water bottles, wrappers other things, if you drop it, you need to pick it up. Just because you didn’t mean to do it doesn’t mean it isn’t littering the course.

8

That shit drive me crazy. Riding or running to work, I see the accumulation of cigarette butts at the long stoplights downtown and it drives me over the bend.

My favorite/worst story: I was working in a pair of high-rises, and there was a circle drive inbetween where folks would pick up and drop off. It was a black, crushed slate kind of color. Late afternoons I’d sometimes stare out the window and watch from above.

Dude pulls up in an old Lincoln and parks, waiting for someone to come out. While he’s sitting there, he opens his door and dumps out full ashtray onto the ground right next to his car. I mean, I was 8 stories up and could see the freakin’ pile! Closes his door and keeps waiting. People walking all around him leaving work, big old pile of butts on the nice, clean, black slate drive.

Because I ride to and from work I go in and out of the loading dock and know all the building staff. So I call them up and tell them to check it out.

2 minutes later one of the building security walks out the front door and right up to the dudes window and starts chewing him out. I could tell from 8 floors up that she was ripping into him. She steps back two paces and the guy opens his door, gets out, goes down on his knees to start picking up the butts.

I’m cheering, thinking, “Hell Yeah, Sweet Justice” People still streaming out, this dude on his knees picking up his nasty butts. Nice.

Then, the passenger door of the Lincoln opens and a boy, around 10, in football practice gear, gets out, walks over and starts helping his dad pick up the butts. Now I feel like a prick because this poor kid has to help his jerk father pick up these things. Really took the edge off my victory rush. The yin/yang deal, good and bad. Great that the dad got called out, bad that the son had to see it and help out.

Just writing this still gets my blood up. If I were King for a day I’d teach all smokers a lesson about treating the world like their ashtray. A guy can dream, right?

T

9

You call that bad?! I call it a ten year old kid who just learned a valuable lesson.

10

I was a litterbug until my sophomore year in college. I was riding along in my roommate’s pickup and I blew my straw wrapper out the window as we drove down a busy city street. He slammed on his brakes and said (over the horn honking of the traffic jam we were causing), “pick that up.” I said, “what???” He said, “you can either get out and walk home, or you can get out and pick that up.” I sat there for a while, dealing with my pride. Finally, I got out and picked it up.

I’ve never littered since. In fact, now I can’t stand litter bugs. I confront them, just like my roommate confronted me…

11

my bud an I were driving south of Palm Springs when this guy in a caddy ahead of us threw an entire full 35 gallon garbage bag out the window into the desert…I was so pissed, pulled over picked it up…5 miles later I caught up with the sob and swerved to within 6" of his drivers door where upon my bud tossed the bag back in his open drivers window…justice served.

as for races, I cant think of a race where I haven’t given penalties for littering. At Vineman a few years ago a guy tossed a banana peel over his shoulder in the middle of a town and it almost hit me on the moto…that cost him 4…

stick it in your pocket, you carried it this far and hey its lighter now too.

12

Too true, but I felt bad that the kid had to pick up after his dad. I’d have preferred the kid learned the lesson from the car, without having to get dirty.

T

13

This a subject very dear to my heart. One of my runs from home takes me along the harbourside of the shoreline on a spit. The harbour is only used for small sailboats and for the outdoor activity centre to teach dinghy (sp) and kayaking, and as such is an area of considerably natural beauty as well as being a designated area of special scientific significance due to rare flora and fauna. It astonishes me that, although the only reason one has for being there is to enjoy the view and natural beauty, people dump there litter along the shoreline as they walk or sit there.

In fact it bugs me so much that when I was injured recently I walked along there with bin bags and picked up all the litter on a number of ocassions. I alos shout and shame my fellow riders if I ever see any of them dropping litter. “You bring it on the ride, you bring it back” is my motto.

14

maybe we should petition USAT to DQ people who litter during races. isn’t it abandonment of equipment?

15

The most offensive thing I ever saw on this front, was being on a remote Island in the South China Sea and walking out onto an otherwise, pristine tropical paridise like beach, only to find a scum of cigerette butts at the high tide line all along the beach!

Fleck

16

This subject gets my blood boiling as well. Usually I will call people out without hesitation, although two years ago in a XTerra race I decided not to for some reason. Guy tossed his water bottle on the run just before a climb. Not sure why he had a water bottle for a 4 mile run anyway. I decided if I was able to catch him then I would say something - well did not quite catch up so I kept mum even though he cheated/littered.

17

While I applaud that many Southern California beaches have banned smoking, the source of practically all the butts in the sand are not from smoking on the beach. They’re the butts thrown out of car windows into the street. They don’t degrade. They sit around until the next rain washes them into the rain gutters and eventually they find their way to the ocean. The surf washes them up on the beach.

18

After further review, I have at least one new policy, concerning this subject…

On rides I lead or organize, it is a rule that one must wear an approved helmet. If I am not leading the ride, I endeavor to convince the “leader” to use the same rule, if they aren’t already of that mind. Show up once without a helmet, I’ll loan you the extra I always have for this instance and warn you not to show up without a helmet again. Show up again, and you are not allowed to ride, and uninvited from future rides…

Well…concerning littering…I will now warn once, stop the ride, and have the rider pick up their litter. Litter twice and the rider will be uninvited from the ride.

As for racing…yes, there is the equipment abandonment rule, and as Eric pointed out…when enforced, it brings a fairly stiff penalty… Here’s my suggestion: Violate the equipment abandonment rule and not only are you DQ’d, but you are made to stop racing RIGHT THEN AND THERE. No warnings… Its pretty easy for the refs to tell if you are dumping bottles and wrappers in the feed zones, or even if you inadvertently drop your bottle and stop to pick it up… Hell, I dropped a bottle at PM NC and it cost me about a minute or so going back to pick it up…that cost me 3rd in the AG…but who cares…Even though there weren’t any refs to be seen at the time and I could have gotten away with leaving the bottle…I could go home and look myself in the mirror and be satisfied not only with my race, but with having done the right thing…

Its simple, really…you take it on the ride/run/kayak/horseride/hike/etc./etc. IT COMES OUT WITH YOU.

Maybe the “stop racing immediately” penalty sounds draconian…but the issue is at least as important as drafting…and really moreso when you consider that littered race courses often cause RD’s friction as they negotiate the next year’s race…Stop littering and giving our sport a bad name to the public at large…we should be MORE responsible than the average schmo…