Littering

So I was driving yesterday with my sister and we saw this billboard about littering. It had a picture of a person with huge eyes and a cell phone and it said simply, "Are you looking for litter?" So my sister and I discussed this further to catch the meaning. And I believe we came up with the fact that they wanted people to call the "Litter HelpLine" and turn people in. It was a bit like George Orwell's "1984" or even the late real life communist leader Ceasescu (pronounced: Chow-Shes-Coo) of Romania (or any communist leader for that matter) who would require that you turn traders in or risk death yourself. Now I realize that is a major leap, from communism to litterer, that what they are doing is illegal however, talking on your cell phone is also illegal so essentially I would be doing something illegal to turn someone else in for doing something illegal. This very much intrigues me.
Littering is another one of Washington state's favorite campaigns. In fact, if you are ever driving along a freeway you will see green signs stating "Litter and it will hurt." That's it. There is no fine attached to it on the sign, just "it will hurt." My sister and I find it hilarious. It's not even polite. But as of April 2007 Washington is on a major no littering kick as you can read here- http://www.ecy.wa.gov/news/2007news/2007-083.html This article talks about the two types of hazardous litter. The first being cigarette butts out the window, the second is when you are taking large loads to the dump, or wherever and they are not properly secured (apparently these are the most fatal as well). There are also links to check out your local regions "litter activity report by ecology region" and some stats and videos to watch. It will even tell you how many hours are spent cleaning up litter and how many pounds the crews collect. I find this all so fasicnating.

Now I'm all for not littering, but it is really my job to catch the litter bug? It should be my job to keep my litter in a recycling bin.

FYI-The campaign must be working as the Seattle area is beautiful!