EarthDay '21: Smokers, Fast Foodies causing MUCH local Littering

By STEVE SPACEK Thursday April 22, 2021

Cigarette Smokers, Fast Foodies and Generation Z are the largest, most inclined groups inside the City of Memphis, within Shelby County and across all of Tennessee to litter solid wastes onto public spaces (sidewalks, streets, parks, rivers). Wastes capable of breeding viruses, damaging landscapes and taking away human life each and every day! This information comes as Thursday's 51st Earth Day is celebrated during the Covid-19 outbreak, said Steve Spacek, director of the American State Litter Scorecard and a public performance specialist.

Observations by psychologist Francis McAndrew and journalist Alan Bisbort, and findings from over four decades of US state litter studies (including those completed by the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TnDOT) have gleaned consistent, prominent litterer clusters marked by an engaged activity, by occupational employment or by age generation. These clusters are known in research findings as Profiled Litterers—persons most prone or willing to litter solid waste, anywhere, anytime.

Cigarette Smokers are by far the largest populated, profiled litterer cluster in the city of Memphis, in Shelby County and across our Volunteer State (smokers dominate litterers across the river in Arkansas and to the north in Kentucky). They provide the number one most thrown solid waste item in America: filters (“butts”). Another blatant “prone-to-litter” group hurting the environment locally is Fast Foodies. That group is known for tossing quick-served food packaging and beverage containers onto streets, sidewalks, parks, and creeks with little remorse. The Generation Z demographic populates Shelby County and densely urban areas of Tennessee well (Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga). They too, are a demographic long known to waste removers and litter researchers at TnDOT--High Schoolers, College Undergrads and Youngest Adults within an age 16-25 confine. Another prone-to-littering cluster is Building Construction and Groundskeepers Workers, but research data shows as a group, have a much smaller population presence in Memphis and Shelby County than do the Generation Z’s, Fast Foodies and Cigarette Smokers.

Last year, Memphis made the Scorecard's "U.S. 15 Biggest Most Littered Cities" list, along with Nashville. Tennessee’s two largest cities were noted for widespread, visible waste litter and for being Centers for Disease Control “hotbeds” of uber-high Covid -19 cases and deaths. Additionally, the Scorecard’s website, litterscorecard.com, recognized the Volunteer State’s stellar death counts from crashes with waste and debris, determined by annual data released from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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