Mandatory hard time for littering

Friends will confirm that I've talked often about running a political campaign based largely on a platform of mandatory prison time for littering.

It's partly in jest: the part about running for office.

Mike McFadzen reminded me of my loathing for litter with an excellent piece in the September issue of Silent Sports Magazine. We are like-minded on the topic, although he advocates stiffer fines and I advocate stiffer time.

Like McFadzen, I have been discouraged to find cigarette butts, beer and soda cans and the debris from fast-food joints strewn across my favorite bike and running paths. The Milwaukee lakefront after the Big Bang is an embarrassment.

Here are some of the statistics that McFadzen includes in his piece: According to Keep American Beautiful (KAB), over 51 billion pieces of litter appear on U.S. roadways each year. That's 6,729 items per mile of roadway.

• Tobacco products comprise roughly 38 percent of all U.S. roadway litter. Paper (22 percent) and plastic (19 percent) are the next most frequent types of discarded materials.

• Packaging litter comprises nearly 46 percent of litter, including fast food, snack, tobacco and other product packaging.

• Most roadway litter, 76 percent, appears to originate from motorists and pedestrians. Individual actions by motorists (52 percent), pedestrians (22.8 percent), improperly covered trucks and cargo loads (16.4 percent), and other behaviors are the source of roadway litter.

As for my advocacy for jail time, I admit it makes little sense. But then, I wonder about the mind-set that makes someone think it's OK to pile their snack wrappers, soiled diapers and other waste under a park bench along the Oak Leaf Trail. That kind of depravity suggests a disrespect for most of society.

And that was the sight this morning that got me started back on my campaign.