How many of you knowingly litter while riding?

I don't think I do

I don't. Well I should say I don't throw wrappers on the ground. If you consider a banana peel here or there and some snot rockets littering then I do my fair share. As far as bar or gel wrappers, they only add about an oz. or 2 and the most, and they are tucked away in a pocket...don't even know they're there. Depending on the brand, I might spit out the corner of the wrapper I tear off with my teeth. Like you said, I can POSSIBLY see dropping a wrapper here and there if you are not thinking about it, but is it really that hard to reach back and put your empty wrapper in your pocket? I would think that when you eat, you're not bearing down and sprinting or climibing or anything that you would need two hands on the bar. Just my opinion.
Another rant about roadside trash...I think it is disgusting (at least in America) at the amount of cigarette butts on the road. If we as a country outlawed smoking, imagine how clean this place would be. The air would have that much less pollutants, people would be that much healthier and the roads would obviously be that much cleaner. I guess if I wasn't on a bike and seeing this nastiness on almost a daily basis, I wouldn't care, but I am and I do.
My rant = over

i might do that during a mtn bike race when there's tons of other wrappers already on the ground. and i try to throw it in a pile of other trash. probably not good but i guess i don't really consider it the same as littering on the road because there's staff that's going to clean it up.

hmmm...upon further thought, it's probably not something i should do.

rdr0912 said:

Another rant about roadside trash...I think it is disgusting (at least in America) at the amount of cigarette butts on the road. If we as a country outlawed smoking, imagine how clean this place would be. The air would have that much less pollutants, people would be that much healthier and the roads would obviously be that much cleaner. I guess if I wasn't on a bike and seeing this nastiness on almost a daily basis, I wouldn't care, but I am and I do.
My rant = over

You sir are a god damn genius. I literally started thinking about this issue a couple of weekse ago. How much litter is generated by smokers' butts? They will seriously just throw them on the ground or in the water ANYWHERE. That is why I think the government ought to force cigarrette companies to either:
(1) Develop a fully biodegradable filter (like maybe made from the corn starch they use now to make eco-friendly packing peanuts)
OR
(2) Outlaw cigarette filters all together. So what if it's "less healthy" for the smoker. If they've made the decision to smoke they obviously don't care about their health in the first place.

saintsfan342000 said:

You sir are a god damn genius

If only more people knew this, I would be set for life!😎

No, I don't litter, except for my carbon emissions, I guess.

Never. The only things I routinely carry that are disposable are Gatorade bottles once they're emptied and sometimes Kleenex. I always keep them until I reach a trash container.

Last week I dropped a band-aid that was no longer sticking to my finger.

I have a feeling that watching rides in the Tour De France cast away their empty water bottles has a bad effect on riders who think it's O.K. to litter. The difference is that the bottles are quickly picked up as treasured souviners by the crowd, unlike gel packs and power bar wrappers.

Never on a training or recreational ride, I always return everything to my back pockets. When racing, the story is different, I'm sorry, but at 92% MHR at the break, any effort to return the gel packet back where it came out, can be the difference between staying at the front or losing the wheel and losing the race.

If I have the chance, even at the race, if the pack takes some moments to eat and rehydrate, I will carry all the trash with me :-)

😎 I never have ever been tempted as I carry a small plastic sealable bag so the inside pocket of my jersey doesn't become gooey from the gel packs. Banana peels I do toss, but since they are biodegradable, I toss them into an open field, but not on the roadway...:eek:

I never do, i don't carry much when i ride, just two water bottles, and the clothes I'm wearin.

DON'T FREAKIN LITTER!

(banana peels don't count)

You can get booted from a race around here if the official catches you tossing bottles or wrappers anywhere but a feed zone where they will be picked up... not all of the people in the communities around here who host races are 100% thrilled that we come through, so we need to be very careful to not do things that tick them off - like littering. If you are not racing you don't have any excuses - if you can't shove the item back in your pocket while on the bike, stop and do it.

Haha, Kentucky state police have a cheesy saying: "Trash the street, feel the heat." My friends and I joke about it all the time...
On topic though, one of the things that turns me on about cycling is that it is a great method of transpo because it gets you places in a still-reasonable amount of time and without using that yucky gas. Now, not using gas has bifold effects: 1.) You save money...erm, a LOT of money, and 2.) You are one more person doing their part to fight the expansion of greenhouse gases. But if you litter a harsh, non-biodegradable material (like some plastic wrapper) on the ground, you are kinda defeating that benefit of cycling.
So I dunno. I guess you can see littering in that sense as sort of defeating a purpose. Not defeating THE purpose, as I suppose probably a small percent of cyclists ride with a "Save the trees" mindset, but it is a bonus that you negate if you litter.
The internet is great for being long-winded. ^_^

saintsfan342000 said:

You sir are a god damn genius. I literally started thinking about this issue a couple of weekse ago. How much litter is generated by smokers' butts? They will seriously just throw them on the ground or in the water ANYWHERE. That is why I think the government ought to force cigarrette companies to either:
(1) Develop a fully biodegradable filter (like maybe made from the corn starch they use now to make eco-friendly packing peanuts)
OR
(2) Outlaw cigarette filters all together. So what if it's "less healthy" for the smoker. If they've made the decision to smoke they obviously don't care about their health in the first place.

I think the government should force all ranting anti-smokers to take the classic "long walk off a short pier".

You see someone littering, call a cop. But please don't use someone elses behavior to accuse me of something or change my life. Go get your jollies controlling people with someone else.

Only banana peels and apple cores thrown deep into the woods. Anything else goes into the next available trash receptacle.

As far as the side thread of smoking goes, I too do not think that we should regulate smoking. I do agree that smokers need to take it upon themselves not to litter, i.e. billions of synthetic non-biodegradable cigarette filters lining every road in the U.S. along with cellophane wrappers and discarded packages. If the smokers don't regulate themselves, the government surely will in time.

DrunkenBiker said:

I think the government should force all ranting anti-smokers to take the classic "long walk off a short pier".

Man I'm not anti-smoker by any means. If someone wants to do it by all means they should. I think cities that pass smoking bans are way out of line. My post was purely about the [censored] who throw their butts on the ground with complete disregard. It just so happens that about 90% of the smoking population fits into that [censored] category...but they're not [censored] just because they smoke.

p38lightning said:

I have a feeling that watching rides in the Tour De France cast away their empty water bottles has a bad effect on riders who think it's O.K. to litter. The difference is that the bottles are quickly picked up as treasured souviners by the crowd, unlike gel packs and power bar wrappers.

I think you're onto something. Lissenup, folks. Civilians don't want to collect cast off gel packs from overweight yuppies and cat 4 amateur racers.