Just as I was about to declare Miller Lite the beer that litterers were most tossing from moving cars in my annual totally subjective Earth Day survey of trash deposited on our road, I happened to look down and got a shock.
Just to give you some background, every year I collect garbage on or about Earth Day. That’s both because I consider trash a crime against nature and because I’ve discovered that the exercise lends itself to the discovery of consumer trends and an impromptu journey down the dark hole of human nature.
Here’s the good news. I collected only one heavy-duty contractor’s bag filled to the rim with waste during my two-hour effort. In some previous years my enterprise had yielded two or more bags full of debris.
While I’d like to think that’s because the general population has gotten religion when it comes to saving the planet, I can’t be sure. The reason for my hesitation is that ours is a relatively quiet country road and, based on the consistency of the brands I retrieve with my trusty E-Z grabber tool year after year, my hunch is that the same few recidivists are creating most of the mess. And they may not be representative of the general population.
That may also account for why some behaviors seem to cease almost completely from one year to the next and others blossom. For example, I used to find dozens of discarded losing lottery tickets. This year I didn’t find a single one.
I find it hard to believe that’s because people are gambling less than they once did. My hunch is that one guy, or maybe gal, was responsible for virtually all the discarded Powerball tickets decaying in our underbrush and the miscreant either moved, died or came to the belated realization that the odds are always with the house.
It’s safe to say that our litterers don’t lead the healthiest lifestyles. Littering, in other words, isn’t a bug but a feature of the way they move through the world. Such as the guy that tosses all of his cigarette butts into a large plastic soda bottle or some similar vessel filled with water, at least I assume it’s water, and when it’s full simply chucks the ugly swill from his car window and into our weeds.
You’d think that if he goes to all that effort he’d be responsible enough to deposit the projectile in his garbage once he got home, unless he’s trying to hide his habit from someone.
For the sake of full disclosure, I must confess that my family was probably responsible for at least one guilty piece of garbage. I spelunked down a steep embankment at grave personal risk to retrieve a plastic bag from a wetland, cursing all the way.
There are two benefits to this annual exercise, as I see it. You’re cleaning up the road, though based on previous experience a blank canvas is an invitation to defile the landscape afresh. The other is that you feel morally superior to all those creeps that think nothing of using nature as a garbage dump.
But as I retrieved the bag I recognized its design. It hailed from Zabar’s on Broadway and closely resembled the bags they wrap items that constitute spilling hazards. For example, the quart of full sour pickles I bought at Zabar’s the previous week and have at other times throughout the year.
Now, it’s always possible somebody else had dumped a Zabar’s bag on our property but considering that we’re approximately 120 miles from Zabar’s deli counter I’m forced to concede that I’m the likely culprit. Or rather it flew off the waste hauler that collects our trash every week.
Newport remains the cigarette brand of choice for several years running, probably with the same guy that creates the tar and nicotine swill. But giving Newport a run for its money for the first time this season is a competitor named Shield. I know nothing about cigarettes but I take it that Shield may be an economy priced brand.
With the ever-increasing popularity of cannabis shops I assumed I might have come across THC-related paraphernalia but retrieved only one box that appeared, based on its weight, to contain a vape pen. I say appeared because I didn’t open it up before I chucked in my contractor bag.
There’s an obvious “ick” factor to this effort, as noble as it is, and I’m always in fear of running across a dead body or something similarly dour. So it’s best not to push one’s luck. That’s also the reason that I don’t return the many bottles and cans I collect, or what’s left of them, for deposit. Reward lies as much in removing them from injurious sight as making a couple of bucks.
Returning to the beer category, for years I found empty bottles of imported beer alongside the common inferior American brands, though I’m aware that some people prefer domestic light beer. I try not to socialize with them. As far as I’m concerned if you enjoy lite beer you might also want to consider tap water.
But I was coming to the end of my collecting journey and about to call it quits without finding a single distinctive green bottle of Heineken, the king of imported beers in all previous years. What could possibly account for its absence? The ravages of inflation? The American craft beer movement? Not that I found any bottles of that in my refuse.
But at the last moment, near the edge of that aforementioned wetland, I came across a mother lode of Heineken bottles, a few dozen on both sides of the road. Some were intact but many were so splintered that I had to abandon what was left of them to the elements.
I’m still declaring Miller Lite the winner and champion. But, as we head into election season there’s a lesson to be learned about not declaring a winner until the last vote is counted.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found be found on Substack.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
