[jaredklewis]

Add Japan to the list. Littering is extremely rare.

When traveling, I've been impressed by the cleanliness of Zurich, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and several cities in Germany.

If as a society we can't do something as simple as not throw garbage on the ground, I think we have a very bleak future.

[NeedMoreTea]

Never visited Japan, but when I have been in Germany, Denmark and Sweden (nearest I've been to Finland!) they seemed to employ more cleaning - or at least more noticeably - than I expect to see in say modern day UK. I do notice, because UK and many other places are bleak in terms of litter compared to what I remember from childhood and early adulthood, in both extent and type. Nowhere has been nearly as bad about litter as the US though. I haven't visited for well over a decade so maybe they got better.

A vast transformation of the amount of packaging and type along with far fewer bins (who the hell thought that a good idea?) and cleaners, gardeners, and people mowing verges. All of which now seem to go by the benchmark "as little as we can get away with". Now add the disowning of any part of blame by business and producers as I mentioned originally. We certainly used to accept that some would always happen and employed enough to make sure the place stayed nice regardless, and the tidier places still seem to. We also presumed reuse far more often, and systems were built to expect that.

We also have a different attitude - more accepting of litter, though not as bad as in the eighties and early nineties when apparently no one in the UK gave a shit, and it was everywhere. Amsterdam, Stockholm and Paris have changed similarly, though none as much as here. Paris is perhaps worst of those.

[siruncledrew]

The US has a lot of variation in litter depending on where you are at, so YMMV. In my experience, go to a nice business district or more upper-class neighborhood/suburb - the streets are well-kept and generally low in litter to maintain a good impression of the area. Go to an industrial zone or lower-class part of town (i.e. off the usual path for tourists and middle-upper class people) and there's trash scattered everywhere. The trash just sits there ignored because, for lack of a better way to say it, there is no one on hand whose job it is to pickup the trash.

There are still places that have a "don't give a shit" attitude about litter, and people are also reluctant to go out of their way to pick up litter without incentive. In my opinion, there is somewhat of an expectation that addressing litter is the task of some third-party to take care of (e.g. government, groundskeepers, trash company, etc) - so it doesn't directly fall on the individual. In other words, "somebody else will clean it up" mentality.

In those places that already have a lot of litter, some people are assholes and just say "fuck it, what's an extra unit of litter on top of the pile". Other times, litter unintentionally gets scattered about from the wind and such, yet it's mostly ignored as to not deal with it. As aesthetically awful as it looks and environmentally damaging, people put horse blinders on to tune it out of their lives even though it's all around.

If I had to compare with other countries:

- Japan doesn't even have trashcans throughout, and the onus is on the individual to 'do the right thing'. (Gold Standard)

- Germany has trashcans, and individuals will generally follow the instructions for disposal. (Silver Standard)

- US has trashcans, and as long as individuals get the trash in/on/near the trashcan it's 'good enough'. (Bronze Standard)

- India/SE Asia the trashcan is all around you.

[CydeWeys]

I'm just leaving Japan after spending a week touring around the country, and I definitely did see litter. Not as much on the streets as in the US, but still some, and the beach was absolutely jam-packed with litter that had washed ashore.

Litter is inevitable. A lot or the time it isn't even conscious. You can just forget that you had set a bottle down next to you, and happen not to look back when you're leaving. Or it can fall out of your pocket or backpack unnoticed when you're retrieving something else. Or the wind can just blow it out of a trash can or vehicle.

[jgtrosh]

Why make your vision of human success hinge on a sudden global capacity to not litter objects for which there is zero incentive not to litter? Think about all the great or crazy human successes; do you think they were enabled by perfect individuals? We build a society to make individual failings obsolete, the opposite (upholding society through global individual rigour) is not sustainable.

[kwhitefoot]

And Scandinavia. Plus here in Norway people actually pick up what litter there is either just casually when out for a walk or in organized gangs set up by sports clubs and so on. The kommune (local council) pays for this to be done to clean up shorelines etc.

Britain is far and away the worst country I have ever been to for litter even though it is much better than it used to be.

Of course one thing that helps here is that every drinks bottle or can carries a deposit (roughly 10 to 20 pence sterling) that can be redeemed at any supermarket.