There’s a very trashy corner down the road I'd like to go out and pick up trash from, but due to traffic should only be navigated on foot very early and I haven't solved the sleep problem to wake up early enough. The other Sunday when I went to my little sister’s, her husband was doing that same thing. He gets on an ATV and drives a ways down his road, one direction then the other, grabbing all the trash he can.

I think you have to do it with a good spirit, otherwise it becomes something bothersome. When I lived in Pittsburgh at the top of scenic Mt. Washington, the old men in the neighborhood went around picking up trash from the yards and street every Saturday morning. The trash was from the weekend customers of the bars and restaurants nearby, so they were angry about it, and grumbled the whole time. That’s no way to pick up trash. But at least they had a community sense of clean to do it at all.

Reminds me of a documentary about Asian women, Small Happiness. Actually I may have seen it interspersed with other documentaries, because I could have sworn the city parts were in Japan. Anyway, they showed different women’s lives: One woman was a stay-at-home wife to a well-off businessman. She and every other woman who lived in her high-rise apartment building went out to the halls and stairway every morning, got down on their knees, and swept and scrubbed flights of stairs. They kept everything clean that was used by all and there was no need for a maintenance staff to do it. I’ve read it’s the norm that Japanese clean their neighborhoods meticulously. I really like this.