During one of the COVID-19 lockdowns, I started picking litter in my somewhat extended neighborhood. I guess that boredom played a role, but I also wanted that it was clear to my daughter that one needs to take care of things. Anyways, it escalated over time and nowadays, I do that a few times a week. Very recently I decided to go scientific, or maybe just actuarial, recording how much litter do I actually pick: 1420 liters since September 1st 2024.
I guess that I find it relaxing to walk around, listening to a podcast (recently it has been The rest is history) doing something for an hour, but it would be difficult to nail down what do I expect to achieve. When I fill a 20 liter bag, I often think that nobody would prefer all those plastic wrappers in their garden or in the playground where their kids go. I guess that this means that what I do must have some form of a point.
I guess that I am also hoping that the saying “litter begets litter” has some truth to it, and that people will be more careful if things are already cleaner. Evidently, la ville de Rennes also sends people to clean: by far, it is not me who is doing most of the cleaning.
Likewise, I guess that another motivation is that I live in a kind of mixed neighborhood (Le Blosne), where next to little individual houses like mine, there are plenty of projects. This means that there are plenty of people with a weaker socio-economic status, with a considerable proportion of people with a migration background. It seems to me that it can't be bad for society if somebody like me is seen regularly cleaning the playground next to a project. Evidently, most people don't say anything when they see me, but some people sometimes thank me for what I do and then sometimes we talk for a bit. They tend to be really surprised by me being a math professor, and not living in one of the projects. I guess that this says something about my public appearance... Anyways, a few times I got offered a joint. I didn't take it, although apparently the stuff came from Nador and was excellent. In any case, I took it as a success.
It is not clear to me why I go out to pick up trash, but I guess that I will continue doing it.