Unfortunately, it is sometimes no different in analog public space than on the Internet.
In the protection of anonymity, too many leave behind a lot of rubbish in the assumption that they will not be held responsible for their own actions and the consequences that result for other people and the community as a whole.
Here, as there, it is absolutely right for those responsible to do their best to put a stop to cowardly unscrupulousness.
Even if it is clear that there will be no one hundred percent success.
If, for example, someone ignores the fact that carelessly discarded cigarette butts not only look hideous, but can also result in enormous wastewater treatment costs, then it is only logical to try to compensate for the lack of responsibility: with substantial fines that are imposed for littering.
It remains to be seen whether 75 instead of 20 euros is enough.
After all, according to the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation, a single cigarette butt can contaminate 1000 liters of water with nicotine to such an extent that small organisms die.
Punishment is apparently the only way
According to the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz, in particular in urban areas, nicotine pollution in the so-called surface runoff is 60 times higher than elsewhere. The fact that nicotine dissolved in this way is particularly harmful can be seen from the fact that it has long been used as a poison in agriculture to kill insects. Just one example of the fact that even small amounts of carelessly thrown away garbage are by no means just a trivial matter, quite apart from the disposal of old tires, oily scrap and bulky waste in the tight urban green.
In addition to the consequences of such misconduct for the environment, a core zone of a city littered with seemingly harmless fast food and packaging rubbish ultimately counteracts all efforts to increase the quality of stay in such a way that people like to stay there.
But that is exactly the goal that the city of Offenbach wants to achieve with its new inner city concept “Station Mitte”, which has meanwhile even been awarded by the state of Hesse.
Unfortunately, painful fines are apparently the only promising path where any explanation and appeals to one's own responsibility fail.
Now, however, it is also a matter of increasing the control pressure so that the danger for the unteachable of actually being caught increases noticeably.