[hn_throwaway_99]

That all makes sense to me, but I'd just add that another issue not discussed there is litter. I used to live downtown by a big grocery store, and close to the store there was a creek that ran by. Before the bag ban there were always tons of plastic grocery bags in the creek and along its banks. After the ban, I'm not saying the creek was pristine (it is an urban creek in a major American city, after all), but there was way, way less plastic bag litter after the ban, and it made the walkway that ran alongside the creek much nicer.

[WalterBright]

The D Foundation had our annual conference a few years ago in Ogden, Utah. There was something unusual about the city, something it took me a while to figure out.

There was an almost complete lack of litter.

I don't know how the city did it, but I was impressed, and it made the urban landscape much nicer.

[kyrra]

Sounds like a failure of not enforcing a broken windows policy.

[throwawaymaths]

A lot of times litter is not from littering. A home trash can's lid blows open in a strong wind and litter flies out. Trash escapes from an urban trash can. Trash flies out of the back of a garbage truck, etc.

[lolinder]

The biggest cause in my neighborhood is the pickup process itself: the machine lifts the can in the air, turns it upside down, shakes it, and hopes that it all makes it into the truck.

A lot of smaller stuff doesn't make it in, especially disposable plastic bags, which are basically little parachutes.

[pfdietz]

So, maybe Ogden, Utah's cleanliness was due to bear-proof garbage containers?

[Wowfunhappy]

How do cities in Japan avoid these problems?

[davidmurdoch]

The people and culture.

[Wowfunhappy]

How does that help if a trash can lid gets blown off?

[johnnyanmac]

Because Japan just has less trash can lids to blow off.

https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-shibuya/a...

And as you see with the design of their cans they aren't just holes with some plastic top loosely strewn on it.

But yes, I'd chalk up a society used to carrying their trash until they find a sparsely spaced trash can "culture".

[davidmurdoch]

I don't know, I haven't spent much time there and have only visited 3 major cities. But in each it was evident that they prioritize cleanliness and order, so I might guess that they generally use cans with better lids.

At around 9pm in downtown Tokyo I stopped to watch a clean up crew scrubbing something of the sidewalk. So perhaps it's partly due to where their tax money goes.

[throwawaymaths]

fewer outdoor trash cans. People carry trash home or e.g. to a storefront with an public indoor trash.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Never a fan of suggested "solutions" that are laughably implausible. Even if you support public canings for everyone ever caught dropping a plastic bag, can we not pretend that something like that could ever be implemented in the Western world? Plastic bag bans can.

[johnnyanmac]

>can we not pretend that something like that could ever be implemented in the Western world?

it says a lot that we simply dismiss "don't break stuff" as am impossibility in the western world. Wonder what the Easter world does so differently.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I was referring to a legal solution to plastic bag littering, which is what "broken windows theory" refers to.

The differences in littering in, say, Japan, have nothing to do with legal differences, because they're cultural. Cultures differ, and they have benefits and downsides. Trying to implement a legal solution to bag littering in the US would work about as well as trying to implement a legal solution in India to get people to stay within their lane when they drive.