Were you one of those families that used to litter back in the 1960s, (we were!)?

I grew up in the SF Bay area in the 50's and 60's. As my world became filled with "things" it felt like a magical...and my name was used in the phrase "Dennis the menace". :) I threw my share of snack packaging and soda bottles out the window until the phrase "Litter Bug" became popular. I didn't want to be called a bug, so I quit littering. :)

In 1973 I visited my brother in San Francisco. He got a ticket for throwing his cigarette butt out the window!
 

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My parents never would have left trash behind, they didn't smoke and, come to think of it, I don't remember ever eating or drinking anything in the car when we were out -- that's what those picnic rest stops were for!

I remember getting a "good citizen" award in high school and I think that must have been because I couldn't walk across a room with a bit of litter on the floor without stopping to pick it up. This was my father's training. He had been a drill instructor during WWII and we kids grew up having, "Police the area!" barked at us.

These days, I think the three of us make far less trash than our neighbors. We don't drink bottled water or any kind of soda, just water from the Britta pitcher and coffee from the machine. On trash pick-up day our neighbors all have out two large bins while we have one small one half full.
 
I don't recall anything about littering from cars, we hardly ever ate/drank in the car anyway.
The one habit that always annoyed me- when I was a little kid, people could still smoke in stores (grocery stores, department stores, etc.) and my mother was always crushing her cigarette butts out on the floors in the store aisles. It grossed me out.
 

Geezerette said:
Never! I was brought up in the 1940s and was taught never to throw litter anywhere but a real trash can. Keep it with you in an old paper bag at least till this was possible. Certainly never from a car. Very disapproving of anyone we saw doing it. Raised our kids the same way.
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Kids raised right are rare, and a blessing.
 
Trish said:
You were driving around in cars, munching crisps and scoffing sweets? Wow! you were living the life Graham lad, we didn't have a car, can't remember mum buying crisps and sweets were a treat on a Sunday night when we all sat in the front room and watched Sunday Night at the London Palladium. :)
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A Ford Zephyr. 6, black and white livery with white wall tyres, and only three toward gears on a column change system.My dad never stopped going on about how powerful it felt on a hill when you dropped down to second gear!
Us kids managed to wear out nearly every switch or other device on the inside of the car.
There were no holidays for us all, only on the farm though I didn't care as I was antisocial anyway, (not really, just putting a brave face on the fact we couldn't afford one for most of my childhood, though we had all kinds of other ways of being spoiled).
 
Jules said:
No. My ex did feel he had the right to spit out gum on the dirt roads; his excuse was that gum was biodegradable.
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I remember my daughter being told in Brownies..maybe Girls Scouts :unsure: not to throw their gum on the ground because animals could chock on them..great lesson for all kids to learn early..too bad many adults did not learn...
 
katlupe said:
Never! My parents would never allow us throwing anything out of the car windows. I hate litter today especially when I see it all over the streets, parking lots and the parks. It is an eyesore and I just can't understand why people do it.
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I have never understood why people litter. Surely they do not behave that way on their own property. It is especially annoying when there are trash cans all over and still people litter...
 
Serenity4321 said:
I have never understood why people litter. Surely they do not behave that way on their own property. It is especially annoying when there are trash cans all over and still people litter...
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Unfortunately, they do. It’s pretty disgusting what you see in some yards.
 
No, never...my parents would have bopped be on the head, if they saw me throw anything out of the car or even drop it when walking. They hit hard too... Both my parents smoked, and they NEVER flipped ashes out of through their butts out, it all went in the car ash tray. All of it just was not acceptable in my part of the world. ...it still isn't!
 
grahamg said:
A Ford Zephyr. 6, black and white livery with white wall tyres, and only three toward gears on a column change system.My dad never stopped going on about how powerful it felt on a hill when you dropped down to second gear!
Us kids managed to wear out nearly every switch or other device on the inside of the car.
There were no holidays for us all, only on the farm though I didn't care as I was antisocial anyway, (not really, just putting a brave face on the fact we couldn't afford one for most of my childhood, though we had all kinds of other ways of being spoiled).
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I only had one school friend who went on holiday, after every summer term she would come in and boast about her holiday in Margate, her grandparents had a caravan there. The rest of us would spend the summer holidays in the local park, we probably had more fun to be honest. :)
 
grahamg said:
Back in the 1960s, (and maybe bit beyond) my family were the sort that used to drop litter out of the car as you were driving along, (my father setting the exmple when he used to smoke, dropping the cigarette foil out of the window, or sweeties/candy papers or wrappers too!

Of course there is very deinitely no way I would do such a thing, and i disdain the louts who still managee to ty to mess up our countryside here abouts with litter after they've had their fast food meal or whatever!

However when plastic wrappings on food was relatively rare, and most soft dinks came in bottles upon which there was a return fee of a few pence, then I must admit we didn't care about causing at least a little bit of a mess.

How things have changed hey! :rolleyes::whistle:🤬
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Why would you do that?
 
grahamg said:
Loutish family trait I guess, though I'm a totally reformed nagger of anyone littering these days, (though as said in OP plastic and the rest of it didn't appear to be much of an issue in the 1950s/1960s)
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I was here in the 50s/60s and littering was never an acceptable action.
 
timoc said:
So was I, and I agree. 😊
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Try telling my dad back then, he set "the appauling example", but again I do stress there won't be a forum member who used less plastic in their daily lives than my parents did, so none of this generation can truly take up a " holier than though position", (and I don't care if you say you recycle and do all the rest of the things we try to do today, your shoes won't have leather soles, you won't wear them as long, you won't wear your clothes as long as my parents generation did, especially the farming community, and so on, and so on,.., they were better for the environment than we all are! :) ).
 
Gaer said:
I was here in the 50s/60s and littering was never an acceptable action.
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Ever flown anywhere, (my loutish parents flew three times to Switzerland in their lifetimes for family christenings!)?
Sweet/candy wrappers almost all paper back in the day, cigarette packets the same, virtually no food came wrapped in any plastic, only brown, or greasproof paper, need I go on "environment wise", though I agree with you 100% of course :) )?
 

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