No Tirar Basura: Don't Throw Trash

A woman in a professional business suit walks down the street digging into her purse. She pulls out some old receipts, takes a look, crumples them up, and tosses them on the street. For a block she throws at least 5 pieces of trash from her bag leaving a trail where she has walked.

Yes. This happened. In fact I have seen similar behavior several times in just the past month. No guilt littering.


It disgusts me. I actually give the offenders dirty looks, because I can't help it. They have no shame whatsoever dumping their trash on the middle of the street. What ugly behavior. Of course not every Uruguayan litters, but there seems to be little social stigma attached to dumping used wrappers, old receipts, plastic bags, and other types of waste on the street and sidewalk.

I can imagine if somebody did this in the US another bystander would confront the offender. Or the litterer would be more secretive about their behavior because they recognize they are doing something wrong. I think there needs to be a "no littering campaign" here that makes tossing trash on the street an embarrassing faux pas for everybody.