Sick of Litter on the course

[BrotherDave]

Here in GA it seems people that are too poor to afford trash service will just drop their damn bags in the middle of the road and let it spread everywhere...it is disgusting and really annoying to see.

I think there is some truth to that, poor people just couldn't give a damn about littering. As a poor person myself that kind of upsets me, why ruin things like parks that are free? No excuse. I also think "tidy" people make the biggest litterbugs, people wanting to keep their car or bag or pockets or whatever free of trash so they just throw it outside. You can take one look at my car and tell I'm not a litterbug.

 

[mashnut]

I wonder if part of the problem is simply the growth of the sport. Around here, I'm seeing tons more first time players around than I ever have before, often in large groups where it's pretty clear not one of them has played before. These groups tend to have a lot less knowledge about course etiquette etc., and also much less respect for other players and for the course. These are the same groups that I see breaking off branches and leaving cigarette butts/beer cans behind. A lot of it my just have to do with a large number of new players who need to be educated in how to behave on a course, but I'm not sure how to do that...

 

[SigmaChris]

I won't argue that people litter and its disgusting. I usually golf with my dog and always have grocery bags to pick up her poop. Well my dog usually doesn't poop at the park for some reason so the bag comes in handy to put the trash, better than dirty water or old beer at the bottom of my bag. Plus the bag obviously can be squeshed down fairly small when its empty so it doesn't take up much space.

On the flip side of the argument, I have seen lots of parks not have their trash cans emptied on a regular basis. Cans are almost completely full so it only takes one good gust of wind to blow it over to make a mess. If you ever see full trash cans, it would be worth the call to the local parks and rec department and ask to have them emptied.

 

[volklgirl]

Since Kenwood is on city owned property, we just got the city council involved. Our suggestion was for big No Littering signs with associated fines ($100 and up) to be posted at least at the #1 tee, then for enforcement for about a month. Word of those types of fines get around pretty quickly. Enforcement shouldn't be a huge deal since the cops sit right at the corner of the park for speed enforcement, anyway.

 

[milow369]

Couple of ideas sparked as a result of this thread - thanks in advance for getting the juices flowing.

1) I also remember doing a half-day on the beach in Santa Cruz picking up trash, cigarette butts, etc. My company gave me paid leave to do it. I believe I also got to write off the time spent on my taxes (charity deduction). Some local companies might find it to be good PR by donating man power to clean up the parks. Good idea and pretty do-able.

My local disc golf clubs have work days from time to time, and they are effective - they make a huge impact, but they can't keep up with the day to day litterers.

2) Sidewinding brought up the guy with the 5 gallon bucket. That got me thinking. Let me run this by some folks. When I was going to school in Chico, CA. they had a program called the yellow bikes program. Basically, there were about 30-50 bikes painted all yellow - seats, rims, tires, etc. These bikes were distributed all over the city and were intended to provide a means of transportation when needed. So, if you were downtown and saw a yellow bike, you could take it and ride it home, ride it to your next destination, leave it somewhere for the next person to use it. I can't really remember what the underlying cause was for putting the bikes out there - I want to say don't drink and drive your car home from the bars, but you can get a DWI on a bike...anyway, it's immaterial for this conversation.

What if a bunch of cheapo plastic 5-gallon buckets, equipped with some type of shoulder strap or backpack straps were stacked at the garbage cans at your local course. On your round you could elect to pick one up, or not, pick up trash for a couple holes then dump the trash at the next available can. You could keep the bucket or leave it at the cans for the next person. For that matter, if you did it for a couple holes and got tired of it, or whatever, you could just put the bucket at a tee with no can or off the fairway and at least this way, it would keep the trash contained. Having them available might be enough for that person to pitch their can in as opposed to just throw it into nature. There are enough people playing who love the game and their course enough to pick up a full can and empty it when needed. Of course as I say that I can picture some punk turning over a half-full can in the middle of some hole or at some tee because he decided to use it as a bench. Regardless, this could keep the trash centralized and therefore easier to pickup. Plastic 5-gallon buckets are cheap, Home Depot or Lowes might donate them for all I know. Anyway, just trying to think outside the box a little. Maybe if you carry a can you get an ace at that next Par 3 250ft hole?

thoughts?

 

[mashnut]

I think that would be a very cool idea, though whether or not it would work would probably depend on the people who use the course regularly.

 

[giles]

thoughts?

Well, the rig in question is mine. It is actually a cat litter container. I managed to find one that didn't have the image printed on the side. Just ask people you know that own cats to save you a few. They are lighter than 5 gal bucket and hold a disc golf bag (like a stool)

The only way your idea would work is if you took them to league night with you and gave them out to whatever cards would take one. Then collect them back up at the end.

We used to play a game with our beer cooler. Looser of the hole had to carry the beer. You could suggest that idea to go along with the buckets.

I have mine mounted in a cut down bucket of the same size on the font of a stripped down baby cart. I got a "backsaver" for under $20 from the gardening section of Home Depot. I don't have to crawl into bushes, bend over or touch nasty trash anymore.

 

[scarpfish]

In the spirit of this thread, I decided to go out and pick up the cans that had been littered all over the course in recent days. I took two bags because I feared I was going to collect 50 cans. I reached that total by the time I got to Hole 8's teepad.

I ended up collecting 74 cans in one pass through the course. And I didn't even look that hard. I'd say 90% of them were beer cans. I didn't even bother with non-can litter because I only had so many hands. I'll have to do another pass I suppose.

To top it all off, I thought I'd treat myself to a round afterwards. On the second hole, my XL gets stuck up in a tree way up high. After about five minutes of throwing things at it, it appears the disc seems lodged up there, so I decide to pick up my bag and walk to the next hole and let a group of rec players play through. Sometime in the 30 seconds I had my back turned, the disc apparently fell out of the tree, and one of that group ran up, grabbed it, and took it. I saw him running back to the teepad with a yellow disc, and I know it was mine because I stalked that whole group for an hour after that and none of them had a yellow disc. Related rant thread to come.


So, between those two things, I'm not terribly happy with disc golf humanity right now.

 

[BrotherDave]

And come to think, for years I've been told that people from the Midwest were the nicest folks around. Tsk, tsk.

you need one of these to throw at the kids that still your discs.

 

[sidewinding]

In the spirit of this thread, I decided to go out and pick up the cans that had been littered all over the course in recent days. I took two bags because I feared I was going to collect 50 cans. I reached that total by the time I got to Hole 8's teepad.

I ended up collecting 74 cans in one pass through the course. And I didn't even look that hard. I'd say 90% of them were beer cans. I didn't even bother with non-can litter because I only had so many hands. I'll have to do another pass I suppose.

To top it all off, I thought I'd treat myself to a round afterwards. On the second hole, my XL gets stuck up in a tree way up high. After about five minutes of throwing things at it, it appears the disc seems lodged up there, so I decide to pick up my bag and walk to the next hole and let a group of rec players play through. Sometime in the 30 seconds I had my back turned, the disc apparently fell out of the tree, and one of that group ran up, grabbed it, and took it. I saw him running back to the teepad with a yellow disc, and I know it was mine because I stalked that whole group for an hour after that and none of them had a yellow disc. Related rant thread to come.


So, between those two things, I'm not terribly happy with disc golf humanity right now.

It just proves that there's no such thing as karma.

 

[BrotherDave]

It just proves that there's no such thing as karma.

As people think of karma. If you're Hindu than you may receive good karma in your next life when you are reincarnated as a bed in the Playboy mansion. But there is no such thing as "instant karma a la My Name is Earl.

 

[skurf]

Calling people out on that can be risky for sure. Be careful or have back up seems like common sense.

This reminds me of when I was at a stop light on some small side street and this guy just threw a huge bag of trash out his window. So I laid on my horn for one long continuous honk. Then this huge Mike Tyson-looking dude lumbers out of his truck and starts heading my way...then another huge Holyfield looking dude (apparently the litter-bug's friend) gets out of the car in front of him and heads toward my car as well. The litterer comes up to my window and's like "What do you think you're doing?" Honestly, I was a bit scared at that point, but I was past the point of no return so I repeat the question back to him, "What do you think YOU'RE doing...just throwing that bag of trash out your window?" He then gets this embarrassed look on his face and makes up some excuse about how he meant to throw it in the bed of his truck when obviously he had just thrown it straight out his window. I then tell him throwing trash in the back of your truck is still littering, it's just time-released littering cause it's going to blow out at some point. He grunts, turns around and heads back to his truck, picks up the trash and throws it back in the cab of his truck.

 

[billnchristy]

Wow...that turned out different didn't it?

 

[skurf]

I saw him running back to the teepad with a yellow disc, and I know it was mine because I stalked that whole group for an hour after that and none of them had a yellow disc. Related rant thread to come.

Instead of stalking them to see if they threw a yellow disc (that's pretty creepy btw) why didn't you just ask them at the next hole if they found a yellow XL?

 

[skurf]

Wow...that turned out different didn't it?

Different than me getting smashed to a pulp? Why yes, yes it did. I think it just goes to show that when people are actually called out on littering, it makes them realize how inconsiderate it was of them. Although, I think a lot of people don't actually care that they themselves are being inconsiderate when they litter (obviously, they wouldn't do it if they cared), but they care (or pretend to care) when they are caught doing it and called out on it. Like oh...I'm actually a member of Green Peace and Save the Whales, me throwing that bottle into the woods must have just been a muscle spasm.

 

[TalbotTrojan]

It is funny, when I play with my mom, who is really still just learning, the round takes about 2 and a half hours, partially because she has so many throws, but more so because she picks up every piece of trash along the way. Come on people, save my mom a lot of work and put your trash in a bin.

Pack out what you pack in.

Give a hoot don't pollute.

 

[trifocal]

One additionally littering story from me. Not Disc Golf, but it concerns one of my brothers who was a very good ball golfer. Bro had everything going for him, but somehow got involved with crack. Steady decline till everything was lost except his clubs. One night he decides to steal his ex girl friends car. He still has a key from back in the day when they were close. I guess he was thinking.....who knows what....but he uses the key to swipe her car and cruise. Stops at Wendys for drive thru and chows down. Going thru an intersection on a boulevard he decides (?) to pitch his trash out the window. The State Policeman at the light took exception to that and pulled him over. Stolen Car, Drunk Driving, Operating a Stolen Vehicle without a license. 6 months in the County lock-up. That guy that used to be my brother has dissappeared. Littering was a factor. Drugs. Alcohol. Dumbness contributed.

 

[innova]

Only a dumbass would litter. Please tell them I said so.

 

[volklgirl]

Only a dumbass would litter. Please tell them I said so.

These dumbasses are the same ones that don't let quicker players play through and don't wait until players on the previous hole hole-out before teeing off. Arrrrrggggghhhhh!!! Rude, inconsiderate, clueless people SUCK!

 

[Ball-Z]

Yeah, people just suck ( not you people of course ) I always leave the course with more than I brought in. I don't pick up everything but you gotta do a little bit.