All big cities know the problem and hardly anyone has an explanation for why a large part of the population is so indifferent to what public space looks like and why it is increasingly littered.
The corona pandemic has certainly contributed to exacerbating the problem.
But it was already there before March 2020. According to a survey by the Federal Environment Agency, a large number of experts said in 2019 that so-called littering, the careless throwing of waste in public spaces, had been increasing for around ten years.
It starts with the flick of the cigarette and ends with bulky waste.
Of course, this has something to do with the trend to offer more and more groceries as to-go goods.
This has intensified since the beginning of the pandemic.
Added to this is the increasing number of delivery services that even bring the latte macchiato to the park bench - in a plastic cup with a lid and on a cardboard device so that the cup does not fall over.
A mixture of comfort and laziness
Experts suspect that the cause of littering is a mixture of laziness and laziness. A kind of indifference has developed, which may be based on the thought, "Someone comes from town anyway and then cleans up". Others go so far as to see the careless handling of garbage as an expression of youth culture. There is even talk of signs of revolt or rebellion. Others, in turn, interpret it as an expression of an “online inner world” - in which the “offline outer world” has little meaning in comparison.
According to the studies, it is above all the boys under the age of thirty who cause littering across all social classes. But anyone who watches those who have a barbecue in the parks (and then leave everything standing and lying) knows that the bad habit is not limited to this age group. Whatever the reasons: The city of Frankfurt would do well to respond with a massive array of rubbish bins and unfortunately also with many expensive cleaning crews - which, by the way, could come at night to disturb something. Only when the polluters say, with a view to the countless rubbish bins, if possible paired with urinals like last summer at Opernplatz, that it is no longer nice to be on the banks of the Main and celebrate, for example, something could possibly change.