Littering in old-time Phoenix



As someone who came of age during the era of awareness of being a "litter-bug", I've always been aware of litter. As a kid I remember seeing a commercial of a proud Indian man standing by a highway looking at the litter, and watching someone throw trash out of a car. To this day it itches me to see someone throw something on the ground, even if I know it's perfectly biodegradable, like peanut shells, or a tiny piece of paper with a bit of tobacco in it. And of course I'm now thinking of how I would feel in old-time Phoenix.

I'm sure that I would see a lot of litter in old-time Phoenix. If I time-traveled back to before the days of plastic, it would be paper, and banana peels, and the kind of stuff that recycles itself, even in the desert. Of course the streets would be littered with cigarette butts, and cigar butts, and no one would even notice, the way that no one notices the stench of gasoline engines burning all around us.

And if I used the word "litter", I'm sure that people in old time Phoenix would just think of puppies. I wonder how old the word is? I don't see any trash cans in old-time Phoenix, and no "please don't litter" signs.

As far as I can figure, litter got to be a problem with paved roads and plastic. If I dropped some peanut shells, or a cigar butt, on the dirt there in front of Sine Hardware in Glendale, it would probably be just about invisible almost right away. But with paving, and plastic, if I threw a plastic bottle there, on 58th Drive (yes, the building is still there), it would look terrible, and be there until someone cleaned it up.

Right now I'm imagining the litter that I would see if I were to walk around old-time Phoenix. Probably spent casings of bullets, whiskey bottles, that sort of thing. Litter then, but if I saw something from 1911, I'd pick it up and take it home, probably put it in a display case.
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