When decency turns to trash

Civility dictates that we change the old habit of improperly disposing of garbage in public places

When we talk about leaving a carbon footprint it may be worthwhile reminding ourselves of something less esoteric, something like the rubbish each of us leaves behind wherever we set foot outside.

After 120,000 people poured into Tian'anmen Square in Beijing on the morning of October 1 to witness the raising of the national flag, they left behind 3.5 tons of garbage, and it was reported that the four-day total was 32 tons. A 150-person-strong team was brought in to clean up so visitors who had to sit on the ground for a respite would find it clean enough for the purpose, a standard of cleanliness cited in the media.

In fact, the situation in the nation's capital is heartening. The quantity of 3.5 tons is 30 percent less than that of last year, and indeed the quantity has been falling through the years.

Then again, Beijing may not be representative of the country in this aspect. Reports during the seven-day National Day holiday were less encouraging: Wherever there was a traffic jam - and there were many partly because of toll exemptions - there was a significant stretch of garbage tossed from vehicles. Outside the guardrail along one section in eastern China's Zhejiang province there was a ditch of cans, cigarette butts and food leftovers that may leave the keenest of sleuths perplexed. But the explanation is simple: The shoulder of the highway was used for temporary parking during extremely bad congestion.

The most dramatic trash-tossing incident happened near Mount Taishan, Shandong province. As a garbage collector climbed over a safety rail to pick up trash stuck on the cliff, a tourist continued enjoying watching his trash flying over the cliff. When he was told to stop, he retorted: "But won't you be out of a job if I don't throw my litter around?"

To which the garbage collector muttered: "I'd rather nobody litter and be out of work."

I don't know what went through his head when the tourist blurted out his justification. I'd interpret it as an ill-timed attempt at humor. Perhaps he truly believed what he said - that a gross negligence of civic duty would boost the employment rate as others can get busy rectifying what he does.

Some people feel that because they have paid an entrance fee to some amenity or other. They have the right to do whatever pleases them there. Etiquette is a notion alien to them. For them, a financial penalty may work as a deterrent.

But fining needs to be consistent, which is easier said than implemented. Very often, too many violators make it impractical to carry out the punishment in each and every case. For a while, Beijing attempted to curb jaywalking by fining violators 10 yuan. I thought it was working because I noticed jaywalkers looking twice before dashing across the road through a red light. But then the whole thing died without a trace.

Litterbugs are usually given a verbal warning, or more likely, a friendly reminder.

Employing trash collectors who work among tourists has the subtle effect of shaming such people into thinking twice. A decade ago I accompanied an Australian professor of tourism planning in a forest park in Yunnan province. He started picking up trash as we walked along a trail. Senior managers of the park who were with him soon started doing the same.

Obviously it did not work in the Mount Taishan case. Anyone brazen enough can turn civility on its head and make the trash collector look ridiculous. He may feel all omnipotent by essentially turning the poor worker hanging at the cliff into his slave. Fortunately, citizen journalism broadcast this small incident around the country, illuminating the public to the extent some will go to to justify their thick skin. In this sense this snippet of news has been a valuable lesson in the education of civilized behavior.

This kind of lesson is now taught in the nation's schools, but it was not part of the curriculum in the old days. This discrepancy can be illustrated by the following story, also from the recent holiday: A girl was accompanied by her grandmother on a visit to a local park in Wuhan. The youngster spotted some crumpled newspaper left by another visitor who had used it for seating. She took it to a garbage bin but her grandmother scolded her, saying, "You should not have done it. It was dirty."

There in broad daylight are three types of characters and the way they dispose of trash: The first would throw out or leave behind things they don't want and not bother with proper disposal; the second, which may be the majority, would not litter but turn a blind eye to trash left by others; and the third would take the trouble to put it where it belongs.

It is no coincidence that the third kind is a child. The girl in this story could well have received guidance in kindergarten on what is the right thing to do, but her grandmother, with her worldly experience, is conditioned to look after her own interests - even at the expense of public interests. When she was at school, China could be mired so deeply in poverty that public amenities did not include garbage bins.

This reminds me of my childhood and what I was taught. I grew up in a small town and had access to both urban and rural living. In the slack season, farmers would go to big cities to collect garbage, which would be used as fertilizer. Back then, most of the garbage from an urban resident was biodegradable, things like rotten vegetables and leftover food. But even then the occasional scraps of glass strewn in rice paddies with other biodegradable garbage would have dire consequences.

Unlike small towns in Western countries, Chinese towns did not have public services like garbage collection until very recently. And some still do not have it. That explains the ubiquitous squalor and the habit of littering in public spaces. When you have clean streets you may hesitate before tossing unwanted stuff into them.

So civic consciousness is not just the responsibility of the individual. First of all, the basic public service of garbage collection has to extend all the way to small towns and rural villages. You cannot expect someone used to big piles of trash outside his door to suddenly change his behavior as soon as he sets foot in a squeaky clean metropolis. Then there is education, which should drum home the point that it is a matter of human decency to respect the environment shared by all of us.

Right now we are living in an age of fast changes when the economy of much of the country is respectably middle class yet the mentality and civic codes lag behind. We'll catch up, but a constant reminder is necessary of the distance we have to go.

The writer is editor-at-large of China Daily. Contact him at raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/10/2014 page30)