"Carry-in, carry-out": Nine Take-aways
Canandaigua Environmental and Ordinance Committees
July 21, 2020

I'm Steve Newcomb, a Canandaigua resident for nine years, and a property owner here for eight. I fell in love with Lagoon Park as soon as we moved here. Six years ago I started cleaning it up, gathering and carrying trash home several times a week, and adding it to my household's municipal waste stream. Four years ago I added Kershaw Park to my sweeps. I've requested the privilege of speaking to you in order to offer some insights and suggestions that I hope will influence future policy, and to request urgent clarification of the "carry-in, carry-out" ordinance.

Summary

1. favors City Pier users.
2. is inconsistent with history.
3. does not keep parks clean.
4. is bizarrely interpreted, leaving volunteers, park users, and City employees in untenable positions.
5. is toothless.
6. has not adapted to the absence of free shopping bags.

1. City provides trash bins.
2. City delegates responsibility and authority for trash removal in each Park to volunteers who care about that Park.

1. Encourage and Support a Common Culture of "Carry-in, carry-out".
2. Encourage park-care volunteerism.

Take-away (1): Most park users are civilized. But... My first take-away for you is that the overwhelming majority of people who use the parks clean up after themselves at least to some degree. They carry out the bulk of the trash that they brought in. But the "carry-in, carry-out" ordinance is not the reason they do it; most of them have never heard of "carry-in, carry-out". I guess they do it just because they are civilized.

But the civilized park users are offended when they arrive in the park and find they can't use its facilities until they have cleaned up the trash left by previous park users. They roll their eyes, mutter something like, "Gosh, some people sure are pigs", and gather up the previous users' trash. But then they face a second challenge: what to do with the trash they just gathered up? That's when they discover that the Park offers no way to dispose of the mess. Park users roll their eyes all over again and mutter something like, "Gosh, is this Park being run by pigs?" We need to confront that rhetorical question, because our collective pride in our parks apparently doesn't motivate us to work collectively to keep the trash out of them.

Take-away (2): Trash arrives in parks without being carried in. My second take-away for you regarding the "carry-in, carry-out" ordinance is that, at least in Lagoon Park, a very significant portion of the trash isn't actually carried in by anyone.

Much of Lagoon Park's trash is hurled from moving automobiles on Lakeshore Drive. The prevailing wind then causes the trash to migrate into the Park. That's why my coverage area for Lagoon Park encompasses the nearby stretch of Lakeshore Drive. I treat the sides of Lakeshore Drive as a "trash interdiction zone". Now the trash from Lakeshore Drive is much less likely to penetrate Lagoon Park.

Let's look at some pictures.

My usual sweep starts at the intersection of Rt. 364 (East Lake Road) and Lakeshore Drive, where this sign stands.

Thanks to Google Maps, here are an aerial view and a map of the area where, for several years now, I've been trying to maintain a virtuous cycle of relative trash scarcity. The hand-drawn gray line on the map shows my typical routes. Starting at the lower right corner of the map, I go west on the north side of Lakeshore Drive, through the two Rosepark housing developments, through Kershaw Park, back on Lakeshore Drive, through Lagoon Park, and back to my home on Walker Drive.

If I'm able to sweep up all the trash in one day, then, the next day, it's usually possible to complete the same route in two hours, and there are usually fewer than two thousand items to pick up.

Depending on the season and the situations I may discover on a given day, I may bring different tools on my route. These pictures show me brandishing all the tools I use in my sweeps and picking up an empty beverage can.

Here I'm working in Kershaw Park, where, at this time of year, I leave the house with the short grabber, a pocket full of empty shopping bags, hat, sunglasses, and anti-CoViD mask.

I used to put the Lakeshore Drive trash, along with the Kershaw Park and Lagoon Park trash, into one or more of the four Kershaw Park trash bins. I would take several empty shopping bags with me on each trip, leaving each bag in the nearest trash bin as soon as it was full. Alas, since early this Spring, the trash bins are gone, so I juggle an increasing number of loaded bags, as well as the current bag and the grabber, throughout my sweep and all the way back home. I store the trash there until the next weekly municipal trash collection.

Other volunteers and City employees also pick up trash, and I don't know how much trash they pick up. I only know what I pick up. Here is what I picked up in my six daily sweeps ending July 3, 2020. Three full shopping bags per day is pretty typical since the trash containers were removed.

Now let's look a little closer. Here are the contents of a more-or-less typical bag. For this picture I picked one of those 18 bags without remembering what was in it. I spread its contents out on a tray. Gathering small pieces of rubbish like this is time-consuming. Each individual item must be found, grasped, lifted and released into a bag. It sounds easier than it is, especially when the wind is blowing.

This is a close-up of part of the same tray of trash. When I've filled a shopping bag, it often has the better part of a thousand individually-picked-up items in it. I crush larger things, like bait containers and beer cans, so that more trash will fit into each bag. In a given bag, most trash items are as small as a cigarette butt; some, like the innumerable bits of cellophane, are smaller. Many are larger.

Take-away (3): Trash begets trash. I have shown you these pictures in order to provide a context for the third take-away of this presentation, which is that visible trash licenses the abandonment of more trash. I've learned that the more trash-free I make Lagoon and Kershaw Parks, the less trash people abandon in them. The more the parks look like dumps, the more they are treated like dumps. When the parks look loved, cared for, and clean, less trash is abandoned in them. Perhaps the most important insight I've gained is that the little pieces of trash matter just as much as the big ones, and maybe they matter more. That's why I pick up so many little things every day -- including the many things that even relatively civilized people abandon without thinking, like cigarette butts, wads of chewing gum, and those tiny cellophane wrappers for miniature drinking straws. [Added 8/1/2020: I was just reminded that this idea bears some similarity to the "Broken Windows Theory" (aka "Defensible Space Theory") (see also Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, which relates the theory to New York City).]

I don't think of my volunteer trash collection as menial drudgery. Instead, I think of myself as working a kind of magic. I distribute the magic of trashlessness in the parks that I love and enjoy. I make trash disappear; it's my disappearing act. The magic isn't in what people see; it's in what people don't see. When the magic is working, people become more reluctant to abandon trash when they are in a trash-free zone. The magic's power is even greater when volunteers like me are seen picking up trash that we didn't carry in.

We shouldn't confront ourselves with trashy evidence that the local governance of our public spaces is not working, or that our social contract is disrespected.

We should not see dog manure, dog manure bags, cellophane wrappers, and cigarette butts everywhere we look.

We should not encourage each other to create risky sanitary situations like garbage, plastic, and feces stuffed into cooking grills, or the toxic burning of plastic trash in cooking grills.

In Kershaw Park, since the trash bins were withdrawn, the cooking grills are now the default trash bins, because there's nowhere else to put any trash.

Personally, I recoil when I see flies moving freely between garbage decaying in a cooking grill and unbagged dog feces less than six feet away.

A regular park observer recently told me that Kershaw Park is actually cleaner since the trash bins were removed, and so it's obvious to him that removing the trash bins was a good policy move. I explained to him that his observation was correct, but his inference was incorrect. The Park is cleaner only because I've been spending 2 to 3 hours daily trying hard to keep it as clean as I can. Without that effort on my part, the Park would be observably trashier than it was before the trash bins were removed.

But the observer's report makes me wonder whether my park-cleaning efforts have been paradoxically counterproductive with respect to policy. If that's the case, I could make amends for my error by collecting all the trash in each park and then depositing each day's collection in the same park, in ready-to-observe piles that will demonstrate why trash bins are important in every park. As City officials, do you think such piles would help you observe realistic data and motivate you to make necessary policy changes? Right now, I'm in a position to support such an experiment, because I don't think the current Ordinance requires me to carry out any trash that I didn't carry in. However, it does prevent me from leaving the bags in which I've collected the trash in the park. I'd have to empty the bags out. I guess I would need to take pictures quickly before the wind re-scatters the trash.

Take-away (4): Parks are for human therapy. My fourth take-away for you is something that seems almost too obvious to mention, namely that the value of a park is in the therapy its users derive from it. That simple idea now guides all my thinking about the parks, and I recommend it to you as a yardstick against which to measure proposed policies.

Obviously, the parks offer therapy in the form of natural beauty, human fellowship, shared experiences, recreational activities, sunlight, fresh air, and exercise. But park trash has taught me things about public health that weren't so obvious to me before. I now understand that park users smoke and drink in the parks because they feel a need to combine park therapy with self-medication. Now, instead of muttering deprecations of such behavior, I pick up butts and liquor bottles with the hope that the combination delivered the hoped-for therapeutic value. Of course I would still prefer that such trash had not been strewn around the parks, but the cost of the effort required to clean up after the delivery of therapy is usually much less than the value of the therapy itself.

The therapeutic importance of our parks is hugely amplified by CoViD pandemic. In view of this, and at least during the pandemic, we would be wise to provide bins in Lagoon, Lakefront, and Kershaw Parks sufficient for all of the food service trash that park users can generate. Our parks are important basic weapons against CoViD, because they offer havens for modest-sized therapeutic events like having lunch with a friend or two from outside our domestic bubbles.

During the pandemic, our municipal economy needs therapy, too. Our parks can help preserve our local businesses at a time when their own indoor spaces are unsafe to use. Again, consider which number is larger: the municipal taxes paid by take-out food vendors, or the price of hauling away their food-service trash from the parks?

Take-away (5): Current park regulations weaken the rule of law. My fifth take-away is that the rule of law is diminished by our current park regulations. People cannot respect laws that are not respectable. For example: Signage that is neglected, confusing, redundant, or nonexistent cannot command respect. For example, the phrase "designated areas" appears on this sign, but no areas are designated. Dogs and pets are prohibited. This regulation is unrealistic, unenforced and violated multiple times every day.

I would hate to have to defend the claim that the presence of leashed dogs is more harmful to wildlife than the presence of humans is. It seems implausible to me.

Glass containers and alcoholic beverages are prohibited. Again, this prohibition is unrealistic, unenforced, and disrespected. Worse, this regulation incentivizes trash-hiding behavior that harms Lagoon Park's beauty and wildlife.

Judging only from the cigarette butts, cigar butts, and empty snuff containers I routinely collect, this rule is openly violated several hundred times daily in Lagoon, Lakefront, and Kershaw Parks.

This is a carry in, carry out park. We have already discussed some of the issues surrounding this regulation, which is basically a euphemism for "there shall be no trash bins". Now let's look at the text of the corresponding ordinance, which forms the basis of my next take-away.

Take-away (6): The "carry-in, carry-out" Ordinance:

1. favors City Pier users. The City seems to favor City Pier's users more than the users of all other City parks.

2. is inconsistent with history. The City in fact provided trash removal service to Kershaw Park during all four of the years I've been picking up trash there. The service stopped last Spring, but the Ordinance itself hasn't been amended in decades.

1. does not keep parks clean. I have collected literally tons of evidence that many people habitually fail to carry out all of the trash that they carry into the parks.

2. is bizarrely interpreted, leaving volunteers, park users, and City employees in untenable positions. The ordinance does not countenance the collection of trash by volunteers who didn't carry it in. In the absence of any guidance from the ordinance, "carry-in, carry-out" is today being bizarrely interpreted by City workers.

   Here's the story about that. Since the trash bins were removed, and since the Kershaw Park Bathhouse reopened for the summer season, Park employees at the Bathhouse have been refusing to accept Park trash for disposal. Having picked up trash in Kershaw Park, including the bagged and unbagged feces of unknown dogs, rotting garbage, and even heavier items, I and all other volunteer trash-removers are being told, "No trash bins. Carry-in, carry-out!" When we say we didn't carry in any of the trash we're holding, the words "No trash bins. Carry-in, carry-out!" are simply repeated. Personally, I don't see how the Ordinance requires anyone to carry out trash that they didn't carry in, but rational discussion is pointedly discouraged. "No trash bins. Carry-in, carry-out!" is repeated until the conversation ends.

   I need to know whether you think the Bathhouse workers' current interpretation of the carry-in, carry-out ordinance is consistent with the intent of the Ordinance. I urge you to prioritize this question on your calendar.

   

   In your deliberations, please consider this commonplace scenario: A small group of Kershaw Park users has just arrived in the Park, and finds trash that blocks their use of their intended picnic table, grill, or lawn.

   • What are these users supposed to do now?
   • Does the Ordinance prohibit park users from moving trash from one place in a park to another place in the same park (but not to trash bins, because there aren't any trash bins)?
   • Or, does the Ordinance require them to carry the trash home, and then come back in the hope that the same picnic table will still be vacant and trashless?

   My question is neither theoretical nor hypothetical. It's real, commonplace, and urgent.

   (By the way, the City's bathhouse workers are today refusing to accept items for the Lost and Found, too. They repeat a similar nonsensical explanation: "No Lost and Found; carry-in, carry-out!" It makes me think of John Belushi's role as a soda-fountain worker on Saturday Night Live as he repeatedly tells customers, "No Coke. Pepsi!".)

3. is toothless. The "carry-in, carry-out" ordinance provides no penalties for polluters. In my view, the ordinance should clarify who is responsible for compliance monitoring and enforcement, and what resources will be applied to enforcement. Or, if there is no intent to enforce it, then for the sake of the rule of law I would urge you withdraw it as an Ordinance, perhaps publishing it instead as a resolution or other sense-of-the-Council document.

4. has not adapted to the absence of free shopping bags. Take-out food vendors like Wegmans no longer necessarily offer "free" shopping bags to their customers, and that change has increased the quantity of single-use food service items scattered in the parks. Before the trash bins were removed from Kershaw Park, food service trash was typically packed back into the same bags in which it was carried into the park, and then either carried away or placed in the trash bins. Even in the worst case, where bags full of food service trash were simply abandoned in place, at least they were easy to pick up and their contents were less likely to be scattered around.

   I've picked up a monumental amount of food service trash, and so during my sweeps I interview Kershaw park users while they are still eating at a picnic table from single-use items that are about to become trash. Sometimes they are in the Park because Google suggested to them that it is a public picnic spot. When I speak with them, such people are surprised to learn that there are no receptacles for their trash. Then, if I still have one, I give them an empty bag, and I aim them at the trash receptacles maintained at Speedway or at Abbott's Ice Cream.

   Now, I'm not arguing that we should return to the bad old days of free shopping bags. I'm informing you that the absence of such bags has multiplied the problems caused by the absence of trash bins. I'm arguing that the right answer is to provide trash bins for public use.

Take-away (7): Two ways to provide trash bins in the Parks:My seventh take-away is two alternatives for putting trash bins into the parks. Either alternative would be better than the status quo. Both alternatives are fair to the taxpayers and to the user base of each Park, and both are consistent with the idea that, "We are all in this together."

1. The City provides and maintains trash bins for all parks sufficient to meet or exceed demand.

2. The City delegates responsibility and authority for the trash in each Park to volunteers who care about that Park. The volunteers undertake a best-efforts commitment to keeping a specific Park clean. The City directs all City agencies to reasonably cooperate, and not interfere, with the efforts of the volunteers responsible for minimizing trash in that park. Consistent with the volunteers' commitment, the City delegates the following authorities to the volunteers:

   • To collect and remove trash from the parks.
   • To design and place waste receptacles and signage in and around the parks.
   • To deliver all waste collected from such bins into the City's waste stream, wherever that is, at no charge to the volunteers or to any entity that contributes to or cooperates with the effort.
   • To solicit, collect, manage and disburse charitable contributions to the undertaking.
   • To make all other reasonable and necessary supporting arrangements as may be appropriate.

Take-away (8): Other measures to improve the situation: My eighth take-away is a grab-bag of measures that I think might be worth some experimentation, regardless of how trash bins are provided.

1. Encourage and Support a Common Culture of "Carry-in, carry-out".

Every park user should be frequently reminded by non-ignorable signage like this.

Work with local vendors of take-out food to inform customers about "carry-in, carry-out". Point-of-sale operator says: "Are you going to be eating this order in a City park? Here's a leaflet you need to read." Even better, point-of-sale operator says: "Here's a bag for your order. Read what's printed on it. You'll need the bag when you've finished eating." Offer signage to local take-out food vendors. locations. "We support Canandaigua's carry-in, carry-out parks."

• Inform and direct the City's park administrators and workers that supporting cleanliness in the parks is as important as any other responsibility.

Add signage to all City-maintained trash containers.

• T-shirts (See Volunteerism below.)

Add "carry-in, carry-out" signage to the picnic shelters in Kershaw Park showing the locations of the trash receptacles, and saying such things as:

2. Encourage and Support Park-cleaning Volunteerism.

   As far as I know, there is no organization of volunteer trash removers, per se, but there is already a spontaneous virtuous culture of trash cleanup by self-appointed volunteers:

   • Abandoned trash in the parks can disappear even when I don't pick it up. Several strangers have told me and shown me that they do exactly what I do: they always bring a bag when they enter the park, put whatever trash they encounter into it, carry it home, and dispose of it. When we see this behavior in each other, we generally thank each other warmly.
   • On several occasions, kayakers on the Lake and in the Lagoon have seen me collecting trash on the shore, and then have brought me trash that they wish to remove from the water. Also, persons entirely unknown to me have retrieved things from the water and left them onshore for others to dispose. (One such thing was a heavy, foul-smelling dining room table. Another was a Wegmans shopping cart encrusted with shellfish.)

   In view of all this spontaneous volunteer effort, I think the City does not need to create any sort of organization. All it needs to do is to encourage and support volunteers in their efforts to keep the parks safe and clean.

   • The City should always gladly and gratefully accept non-carried-in trash from anyone who picks it up in any public space.
   • The City should willingly meet volunteers, listen to them, discuss their concerns, and, when appropriate, act upon them. (That's what you folks are doing this very minute!)
   • Authorize volunteers to:
     • solicit ideas for park maintenance
     • have discussions with park users
     • distribute leaflets
     • post signage in the parks
     • organize cooperation with area businesses
     • maintain websites.
     • wear T-shirts while they pick up trash, perhaps saying something like "I want a trash-free park."
   • Exchange information about park operations with volunteers.

Take-away (9): This discussion is more important than it seems.

The "carry-in, carry-out" Ordinance raises the question of how to enforce it. We could choose to think about the trash problem this way:

This kind of accounting is straightforwardly implementable using current, increasingly affordable technologies. For example:

• The City can add camera surveillance in the parks and in their surrounding roads, waters, and parking lots. Then the City authorities can use facial recognition technology and other AI technologies to correlate persons with the messes they leave behind.
• The City can require the inclusion of RFIDs in food service items provided to local take-out food customers, and access by the City to the vendors' photographic point-of-sale correlation data, so that every abandoned item can be traced to whomever originally bought it.

This enforcement-oriented approach seems to me contrary to the idea that the parks are for therapy. Many of us need and deserve therapy even if our therapy leaves messes that we can't or won't clean up. Maybe the fact that we can't or won't clean up after ourselves is itself part of the reason we need therapy; we would clean up after ourselves if we were normal and civilized, or perhaps if we weren't responsible for screaming children who need to be taken home immediately. I think the question of "How to enforce?" is the wrong question.

Thinking about the enforcement-oriented approach helps me understand why the current anti-tobacco, anti-glass, anti-liquor, and anti-dog regulations are so repugnant to me. If that's the road we really want to be on, we will eventually put RFIDs in cigarette and cigar butts, glass containers and beer cans, dogs and cats, our own bodies, banana peels, and everything else that eventually becomes trash. After a while, everything we do with goods, services, and all other physical entities will be a matter of record. In the long run, such universal accounting may be inevitable, but I personally am not ready for it yet.

So I think this discussion of what to do about the trash in our public spaces is not trivial. I think we'd better review and rationalize our laws before someone decides to enforce them. The rule of law may appear to be strong in our country, but in fact it is fragile. It depends on the consent of the governed.