Picking Up Litter
Short: I love to do two or more good-for-me things at once. Read why you have been missing out on picking up other peoples trash.
I moved to Berlin in August last year. On a daily basis this city confronts its inhabitants with environmental effects that are either ugly, taking away a sense of agency, or both. Experiencing uglyness and loss of agency starts taking a toll on your mental health - and (relatedly or directly) your physical. I realized that I hated being taxed by constant pollution of trash in public spaces. It often feels like communal happiness, social cohesion, and mutual citizen respect suffers in these littered spaces that seem to form a backdrop screaming “This context is dirty, ugly, unhealthy and unworthy; and everyone living in it is too!”.
I do realize, that having a walk and engaging with my surroundings is what my brain needs to not feel boxed in, so when I have home office days or relaxing week end days, I know I should take walks through the neighbourhood. But the litter scattered through the parks or on the side walks does make me feel unhappy and uneasy. I take less walks here, than I did in the tidy city of Erlangen and the tidier-than-Berlin city of Bamberg I used to live in.
What I did as a feel good past time in Bamberg, was picking up litter. I own garbang tongs from way back and I did bring them along when I moved. Back then I did that to have something to do outside with friends and dates during Covid. I remembered how I liked the feeling of doing something for the community. How I enjoyed to see a path that I cleaned the next time I would walk it. I loved how it was an activity that had my every-so-swirly brain focus and calm down. I was happy about the short plesant exchanges with passer-bys - mostly elderly people saying “Thank you”, but sometimes parents telling their kids this was good and me having them pick up some litter with the tongs (it is quite fun!). I started going on “walks” with them every now and then. I often don’t get to go far around my neighbourhood. Too much litter is strewn about and gets tangled in crags and bushes. But all the pleasant reasons I remembered did reemerge. It does seem that people with a little time on their hand like to have a chat (look for the friendly eye contact! - or avoid it, if you don’t want to talk to anyone^^).
It does make me notice trash more the next few days, and I guess this could count as a negative. But I don’t think, overlooking trash means that it doesn’t affect people subcontiousely. Instead I often will take the easy-to-handly trash to the next bin and - and this is the biggest deal! - start feeling more in control of my surroundings!
My biggest take-away and lesson to share with you is this: picking up other peoples litter and cleaning your community will improve your sense of self and the feeling of controlling your surroundings! By a LOT
Starting a few litter pick-ups ago I started wondering, how many people would need to have the hobby to pick up litter in their neighbourhood about once a month. My not-at-all-scientific ad hoc answer is: actually quite little people. Judging from the effect I can observe my clean-up walks have - there doesn’t accumulate too much trash, compared to what I feared. And the cleaner spots do tend to not accumulate trash as quickly.
So now that you are inspired, let me quickly run down the list again. The more-than-one-good-thing-at-a-time-list. Going to pick up litter will have these effects on you:
calming your mind / flow state: a task with direct and pleasantly visual results of manual labour
communal cohesion: making abstract community more concrete -> the neighbourhood that is part of your abstract identity starts becoming a more real part of you
happiness through excercise and leaving your apartment: moving your body is physically healthy and a physically healthy body reflects to a better mental hygiene
happiness through experienced agency: destroy the things that destroy you -> the dowing and dehumanizing environments get broken up and you litteraly experience the effect you have on the surroundings that you might have experienced before only as having effect over you
And I bet you will find further synergies. Get garbage tongs - maybe get friends to join in - and conquer a part of your life that you will realize you were missing.
Thank you for reading. Stay beautiful <3
