[thecrazyone]

I'm from India.

## Problem 1: The problem is not culture, but of poor govt. I as a responsible person want to throw this wrapper, there is no dustbin you'll find for kilometers on end sometimes.

Do you expect me to carry the wrapper back to my home or carry a small dustbin along with me every time?

## Problem 2: You would've noticed, most Indian homes are pretty clean (within reason and corresponding to income level). This is because we care for our private property. Govt is a body which owns public property and doesn't take care of roads and streets (which are public property). This will refute your claim that this is an issue of culture (because we keep our private property, houses, hotels, malls, etc clean).

## Solution (proposed): This is going to be against mainstream and HN views.

1) Privatize roads and streets (takes care of problem 2)

2) Privatize waste collection (takes care of problem 1)

But we won't do it anytime soon, because reasons (we'll I know the reasons, but just don't want to type them down here).

[lurquer]

>Do you expect me to carry the wrapper back to my home or carry a small dustbin along with me every time?

Yes. I don't know you and my comment isn't directed to you. But this is what I meant by 'confused' in my post... It seems many from that culture genuinely think it is absurd to clean up after oneself. The distinction between public and private property has no bearing on how a westerner feels about littering. Indeed, a westerner would be LESS inclined to litter on public property than on his own.

In the West, when one drops a piece of paper or bottle, the thought is (or should be) that you are making life harder for someone else who will eventually have to pick it up.

It's the reason you can rely on Westerners, generally, to clean their own tables and toss out their own trash at fast food restaurants. (Or at least briefly feel guilty about it if they don't). It's the reason you can rely on Westerners to return their grocery carts to the collection points. It's empathy... we don't want to make life harder for the poor worker. I do not believe this feeling of empathy is pervasive in Indian cultures... maybe just a left-over from the caste system...

[srean]

I am Indian and this comment is painful but I agree with a lot of it. Some have actually challenged me "why not litter, I pay taxes for that".

Indian society is very hierarchical and shitting on the rung below you is very ingrained in us. What makes matters worse is that people are so unaccustomed to considerate treatment from the rung above that this is almost an alien concept to them. Hence it does not occur to them as often as it should to be considerate to others.

Just the other day I witnessed an argument. A lady passerby was very annoyed. The construction worker who was doing some welding work on an overhanging grill did not stop to let the lady pass without sparks landing on her. The construction worker's reaction was essentially 'WTF are you talking about'. The fact is that the construction worker probably would have never have experienced a situation where someone stopped work momentarily for his convenience. Its an alien notion. On the other side no one in the lady's social circle would have been a construction worker even if we include multiple generations.

[dragontamer]

> Do you expect me to carry the wrapper back to my home or carry a small dustbin along with me every time?

FYI: in many urban areas in the USA, the expectation is that you carry a "poop bag" and pickup all the poop your dog makes whenever you walk your dog.

This isn't true across the entire USA. Its definitely a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. But still, these are the things a lot of liberal cities expect their citizens to do (and things that citizens actually do, because there are enough people who care)

In fact, there are poop-bag dispensers found at parks. There is literally an industry which makes dog-poop bags: http://www.poopbags.us

Here's a picture of what they normally look like: https://imgur.com/13cAJTg

[deaps]

> Do you expect me to carry the wrapper back to my home or carry a small dustbin along with me every time?

Yes...That's what I would do, and I don't even remotely consider myself an 'environmentally-conscious' person whatsoever.

[srean]

> Do you expect me to carry the wrapper back to my home

That's what I do.

BTW its not that the govt does not put bins, they keep getting stolen. One could argue that the govt could guard them better. I doubt that it would be cost effective.

Someone who is stealing garbage bins probably has a pretty desperate incentive, or these thefts are a part of systemic corruption. Its actually both. Making incentives weaker would go a long way towards a longer term solution.

Its likely that it suits the government fine that the bins get stolen, the contract was given to the private company owned by minister's brother in law. Now they are both happy that they have more bins to order. BTW that brother in law is the one who arranged for those to get stolen in the first place.

Please elaborate why privatization will fix the problem. Not disbelieving, want to understand the solution you propose.

[dd36]

3) Tax plastic and use those taxes to pay for bins and removal. This has the dual effect of incentivizing the use of less plastic and paying for clean up.

[srean]

I really wish taxation was more p2p. In India this process will stop at tax collection. The collected tax will not end up where it was meant to.