Why do people throw out old motors, bicycles, anything metal into rivers and lakes instead of a junk yard or the trash system?

I have been watching magnet fishing and people love to toss stuff over bridges without a second thought on the environmental impact. Hiding evidence I can almost understand but not lawnmowers, car batteries, etc.

It seems deeper fines should be made to discourage this terrible behavior.

TheFeatureCreature ,
@TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world avatar

Lack of proper disposal facilities and/or fees for using said facilities. Easier to dump something in a lake or in the bushes than driving 40 minutes across town to a special facility and paying $30+ to dispose of it properly.

bionicjoey ,

Everyone who disposes properly has to pay a fee. The only ones who have to pay the fine for dumping are those that get caught.

Solution: turn responsible disposal into a game, where if you can successfully sneak your trash to the correct section of the disposal center without anyone noticing, you get paid the amount you would have had to pay as a fee.

ryathal ,

Depending on what it is the cost is a lot more than $30 which is a big reason these things get dumped. An old fridge with toxic coolant could be closer to $1k.

Fosheze ,

Fun fact, those refrigerents can be (and are required to be) reclaimed and sold to recyclers. Old refrigerants that can no longer be legaly produced are actually worth an absurd amount of money when reclaimed because they can still be used but because they can't legally be manufactured or imported the only source for them is stuff reclaimed out of other systems. Companies will pay absurd amounts of money to not have to refit their refrigeration systems to work with new refrigerants.

So if you have an old appliance still full of something like R-12 or R-22 then you have a gold mine to someone with the right equipment and certifications.

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

people are inherently lazy. fines are only for poor people.

if you want to solve the problem, provide an easy method for the general public to correctly dispose of shit, and let them know about it.

the issue being that that kind of social awareness and general action costs money, and conservatives would rather watch the world burn than have their taxes raised.

spujb ,

ye, and if you don’t like the negative connotations of “lazy,” substitute it with “attentive to making cost effective decisions.”

if it costs more, in time or in money, for an individual to properly dispose of something than the negative consequences of just chucking it in a river, the latter option will be chosen. this hilights the importance of community organization to set up a means for disposal, to make it accessible, and to make it known. by working together both the labor cost of disposal and the externality cost of environmental damage can be limited beyond what any individual could do.

vk6flab ,
@vk6flab@lemmy.radio avatar

I doubt that anyone has researched the origin of such junk in detail.

If it doesn't fit in your rubbish bin, generally it costs time, effort and money to properly dispose of things. Tossing it off a bridge is efficient.

Likely there's a not inconsiderable proportion of anti-social behaviour, like stealing a bike and throwing it into a waterway afterwards.

dual_sport_dork ,
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Mostly the second point. I would wager from experience that the majority of small man-portable conveyances that wind up at the bottom of lakes and rivers are there because they were stolen and thrown there. Bikes, motorcycles, rental scooters, shopping carts, etc. The reason is hooliganism, and the contributing factors are alcohol and teenagerhood.

FuglyDuck , (edited )
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

Just for the record, teenage hooligans-in my experience -are actually preferable to the adult hooligans.

Seriously. Teenagers might get drunk and do stupid shit but they’re scared of getting caught and run away. Many times they’ll even clean up after themselves if you’re not a total dick.

Adults tend to stand their ground and pick fights.

(Also, every demographic you care to name steal shit. Sobriety, income, race. None of it matters.)

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Laziness and/or poverty. It costs money to dump stuff like that legally most of the time. It also requires going somewhere usually not close to you.

kakes ,

I see answers for why people dump junk, but not why they dump it on rivers/lakes in particular.

To remedy that: dumping junk isn't legal, and water is good at hiding things. If someone leaves their TV out on the street or whathaveyou, it might be traced back to them, but that's less likely in a river.

Chef_Boyardee ,

It's organic recycling. It's better for the earth.

NeatNit ,

I think there may actually be some truth to this, but I don't know nearly enough to say so with any confidence

GluWu , (edited )

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JiOXLk9Xj1E

sp3tr4l ,

Throw it all into volcanoes?

BassTurd ,

Best case, a load to my local dump is ~$15 min of general waste. Every appliance is $5 or 15 on top of that. I've tucked appliances in other appliance before to avoid the fee, but never dumped outside of the landfill.

Spiralvortexisalie ,

So much this, in NYC (less available now since Covid), there are dump sites for all this stuff (Batteries, Paint, Heavy Metals) as long as its personal amounts (ie cant come with a dump truck) it is at no cost. If you are a business and can not handle disposal fees, well you are unsustainable and should not exist.

jrwperformance ,
@jrwperformance@lemmy.world avatar

Because big thing from high in water make big splashy-splashy.

(This is not me condoning tossing shit in lakes/rivers!)

Rhynoplaz ,

It's true, we cannot deny the allure of a BIG splishy-splashy.

Darkassassin07 ,
@Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca avatar

The bridge was closer, costs $0 (as long as you're not caught by law enforcement), and it's difficult to enforce no-dumping laws as garbage doesn't ID it's owner most of the time and you just can't watch every dumping spot 24/7.

The people that do this are also not particularly wealthy. It's hard to justify the cost of transport and disposal fees when you struggle to feed and house yourself.

corroded ,

People do this because they're crackheads (or heroin addicts, or methheads, you get the idea). It's not a poverty issue, it's a drug issue. The person working a minimum wage job and sharing a studio apartment isn't going to dispose of their old bicycle in the river. The person who steals a bike and realizes they can't sell it to get their next fix probably isn't going to have a problem dumping it in a lake or river. They're already leaving needles on the playground, shitting on the sidewalk, and assaulting innocent people for not giving them a cigarette. Do you really think they give a damn about the environmental impact of dumping their stolen goods in a waterway?

spujb ,

Misinformation, you are lying.

Many factors contribute to higher illegal disposal rates. As stated by many researchers, the most common reason is poor waste management infrastructure, such as waste collection facilities and transportation [6,7,8]. Therefore, providing infrastructure may be a solution to reduce these business-as-usual (BAU) practices [9]. However, Sedova et al. found that illegal dumping behavior is also influenced by other factors such as education level, awareness, dumping cost, and income level [10]. Dumping costs are related to low-income communities. Communities tend to participate in illegal dumping practices rather than pay a certain amount of money [8]. source

sp3tr4l ,

I mean, I believe those studies, but I've also been homeless, been through shelters and camps and have known people who would just toss their broken shit into the woods or a river, whether it legitimately be theirs, or if they stole it.

Obviously not all homeless people do this, but some of them do.

This kind of stuff is usually the most visible to your average joe... so its not accurate to say it does not happen.

But at the same time, its likely that at a more grand societal level, those studies are fairly accurate.

I would be interested if the methodologies of those studies even took into account the homeless population.

Homeless people are kind of notoriously difficult to study or survey, as they are often migratory, have no... you know, permanent residence, and often do not want to be bothered.

spujb , (edited )

You may be misreading something? We are definitely in agreement but you frame it as though we are not.

The person I responded to said “It's not a poverty issue, it's a drug issue.” I made the comment to combat that ridiculous Reagan-era bs.

edit: Also the full text of the study is available for free at the link I posted. Encourage you to peruse it.

Drusas ,

Being wrong is not the same as lying.

sp3tr4l ,

A person working min wage and sharing a studio is actually highly likely to engage in illegal dumping. Ive known many people in my life who've done so because theyre too broke to afford a visit to the dump, both in monetary and wasted time terms.

Mubelotix ,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

Sometimes it's stolen material

InternetUser2012 ,

I may or may not have done this back in my youth. If I did, it was because I had no idea how to dispose of a broken engine block. Now, I could set it at the curb and a scrapper will have it in their truck within a couple hours.

toddestan , (edited )

Junk also tend to accumulate in rivers and lakes. Once it's in there it's out of sight, out of mind - and even if you know it's there it is often difficult to remove.

When it finally gets cleaned up by bringing in the magnet or a barge to dredge it up or whatever, you're seeing years if not decades of stuff that's getting pulled out all at once.

agelord ,

Is this a USA thing? No one does this in my country. WTF

Flax_vert ,

Apparently they don't have free council dumps

orcrist ,

I notice how you didn't write what country you're from. That suggests a lack of confidence, that you are expecting people to call you out on it.

But I could be wrong. I've been long before. What country?

iamtrashman1312 ,
@iamtrashman1312@lemmy.world avatar

Speaking to a few stories my dad's told me over the years, sometimes you're just a rural dumbass, have a large thing to get rid of, and want a big splash for your amusement

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