Lord Litter: A Monster in Your Own Backyard
by Aaron Banewicz
When students walk across the Hamilton College campus, they
may notice the handsome architecture of the old, stone buildings, the natural
beauty of the well-kempt lawns, or the sparkling snow covering the numerous
trees. With a closer look, however, students will notice something a little
less pleasing to the eye. Our campus is covered with litter; Aluminum cans
border Martin’s Way, cigarette butts cover entranceways to residence
halls, and Styrofoam cups dot the main quadrangle. These items create a monster
on campus, turning our beautiful school into an eyesore.
Lord Litter is an assemblage of trash that I collected from
campus. It is a monster representing the harm that litter can have on the
beauty and health of the environment. Friday and Saturday mornings are the
times when most litter can be found at Hamilton, so I gathered most of my
building materials on weekends. Since trash is very easy to come across on
our campus, I did not have many problems finding materials to construct my
monster. Lord Litter contains only the cleanest garbage on The Hill. I did
not include cigarette butts or discarded food items on my monster for cleanliness
reasons, but these items make up a big part of the litter on campus. The main
body and head of Lord Litter is composed of empty beer cases, as much of the
litter on campus is alcohol-related. The monster’s arms are made of
empty beer cans and soda bottles. Coving its head is newspaper hair and an
assortment of other garbage including paper cups, candy wrappers, and plastic
eggs. There was even a can of Spam littering campus which is included on my
monster.
Lord Litter is similar to Frankenstein’s monster from
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in that he is composed of a mixture of waste
products. Victor Frankenstein collected different body parts from different
people in the charnel-houses. Similarly, I collected different waste materials
from around campus and molded them together to form a monster. Frankenstein’s
monster and Lord Litter are both made out of foul materials. Frankenstein’s
monster is composed of dead body parts. Lord Litter, although composed of
only clean litter, is still made of garbage. Julia Kristeva claims, “It
is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs
identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules.
The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite” (4). Lord Litter and Frankenstein’s
monster fit this description. Dead bodies should be buried, kept away from
living beings. Frankenstein, however, upsets boundaries by bringing dead body
parts into the living world. In the same way, garbage is something that we
want to keep away from society, so when garbage becomes litter, it upsets
boundaries.
Mary Douglas argues in her essay, Purity and Danger: An analysis of the concepts
of Pollution and Taboo, that danger is found in the margins of society and
in transitional objects. Litter is in a transitional state because it is a
waste product that has not made its way to its proper place in a landfill
or recycling plant. The materials that make up Lord Litter should be thrown
in a garbage can or recycling bin to be carried away properly. Instead, it
is thrown on the ground and is either picked up by a Physical Plant worker
or carried away by an animal which mistakes it for food. Douglas explains
that danger is found in transition “simply because transition is neither
one state nor the next, it is undefinable” (96). Litter is a product
that is neither one state nor the next. In the case of beer cans, for example,
after the beverage is drunk, the can should be placed into the five cent deposit
bin so it can be carried away and recycled into new aluminum products. When
cans are littered, however, they are put into an indistinct category. They
are waste material, but they are not in their proper setting. Garbage is something
that should be on the margins of society. Nobody wants to live near a dump
or landfill. We normally push garbage out of society. In the case of litter,
however, we keep this usually marginal object within our society, or on our
campus. Why, then, do we keep this marginal material in our home? Why do we
not throw our trash in its proper receptacle rather than on the ground? There
are a few reasons why people litter.
One reason people litter is because they do not feel a sense
of ownership for the property that they litter on (Waste 2). Here at Hamilton,
students do not feel like this is their home even though they reside here
for nine months of the year. Most people would not litter on their own, private
property because it is their home. A college campus should not be any different.
If students took more pride in Hamilton College, then maybe they would be
less prone to throwing garbage around campus. People are also more likely
to litter when litter is already present. Garbage that is already thrown on
the ground gives people the idea that it is acceptable to litter (Litter 1).
This is the case in the mail center on campus. Whenever students get a piece
of campus-wide, junk mail, much of it ends up on the floor. It is almost an
accepted practice at Hamilton to throw junk mail on the floor. Many students
also have the attitude that is okay to litter because somebody will clean
up after them. These lazy students take for granted the work that Physical
Plant provides on our campus. If nobody picked up litter, the ground would
be covered. It can take hundreds of years for some materials to biodegrade.
An aluminum can, for example, takes between 200 and 500 year to break down,
and a glass bottle takes approximately one million years (Trends). Many people
also litter without even realizing that they are littering. Cigarette butts,
for instance, are commonly thrown on the ground. It is an accepted habit for
smokers to throw butts on the ground, especially if there is no ash tray near
them. Cigarette butts are not usually considered litter even though they can
take up to ten years to biodegrade (Butts 3-4).
Cigarette butts, like other forms of litter, turn our campus
into an eyesore. Hamilton College has an attractive campus, but the many cans
and bottles covering the lawns make our campus unsightly. While litter contributes
to the unattractiveness of an environment, aesthetics is only a small problem.
Litter can be very harmful to the health of the environment as well. Litter
can be washed down storm drains where it is carried into streams, lakes, and
oceans. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that “some 100,000
marine mammals die every year from entanglement in or ingestation of floatable
[debris].” In addition, litter that has reached the ocean can smother
coral and block it from sunlight, making it impossible to produce energy through
photosynthesis (Rudeen 1-2). Litter can also be consumed by birds and land
animals. Many animals, including dogs, cats, birds, and squirrels have been
found with cigarettes in their stomachs (Waste 2). Furthermore, litter is
a fire hazard. Accumulated litter acts as a potential fire risk, and improperly
discarded cigarette butts can easily ignite flames (Litter 1).
Lord Litter is a monster on the Hamilton College campus and many other places where people live. He turns our campus into an unpleasant scene and threatens wildlife, but he is an easily avoidable monster. Lord Litter can be overcome by simply placing trash in its proper receptacle instead of lazily throwing it on the ground. There are many students at Hamilton who do not litter, but the students who do litter create a monster that all of us must live with. When all Hamilton students learn to fear Lord Litter, our college community will be transformed into a more pleasant home.
Works Cited
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Routledge, 1966.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.
“Litter.” Stone Circle: An Environmental Education
Program of the Prague Post Endowment Fund. 19 Feb. 2003: 1-4.
This article gives information on the sources and effects of litter. It emphasizes
the effects of litter on marine life with a special case study in New Zealand.
The article explains why people litter, and provides alternatives to littering.
The No Butts About It Litter Campaign. Online. <http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/teamstein/myhomepage/>
(April 20, 2003).
This website addresses the problem of cigarette butt litter. It provides information
on why smokers litter their butts, and provides solutions to littering. The
website also lists facts about the harm that carelessly discarded cigarette
butts cause, and offers free anti-litter posters and ashtrays.
Rudeen, Louisa. “Tread Lightly.” Motorboating. Oct.
2001: 20.
Rudeen discusses litter in nature, specifically in the ocean. She talks about
the sources of litter in the ocean, and its impact on the environment. She
encourages the readers not to litter in order to maintain the beauty and health
of the environment and provides some tips for recycling.
“Trends.” Chart. Waste News. 15 Apr. 2002: 1.
This chart lists several commonly littered items and the length of time that
it takes for each item to decompose. The litter listed in the chart is harmful
to the environment and typically found on roadsides.
UBC Waste Management Litter Reduction Program. Online. <http://www.recycle.ubc.ca/litter.html>
(April 27, 2003).
This webpage provides information on the rate of biodegradability of materials,
lists reasons why people litter, where littering occurs, and some of the dangers
of litter. It offers projects in litter reduction and clears up myths about
litter.
