I wonder why people litter in the USA?

In Japan it's almost impossible to find a trash can on the streets and yet people don't litter. The problem is the culture centered around consumerism and waste.
- This. Throwing your trash on the ground because you can't find a trash can amounts to childish entitlement in my eyes.
  No trash cans in the forest, is OP saying they just litter all through nature when they go camping?
  
  A lot of people do...
  
  they just litter all through nature when they go camping
  Many americans do just that, yes. :'(
  
  It's somewhat comforting to know that no matter how far out in the wild you go you eventually find signs of humanity.
  The fact those signs are pieces of trash that someone either left or blew in on the wind is depressing.
  
  Funnily enough that's where I find most of the litter in Japan, like, if you go to any non-main road that goes through a bit of forest, you will see signs threatening fines for littering, with a bunch of trash tossed in that exact area.
  I have seen cans, bottles, ACs, TVs, baby car seats, bags, and general household trash. Also found a golf club once that I actually brought home because I thought that it was neat. And this is only along a single stretch of road that is only like 1km long.
  So Japan isn't some miracle society that doesn't litter, it's just that they do it someplace that is somewhat out of sight.
- With respect to Japan, there's definitely a culture difference, but I don't think it's the consumerism/waste culture. There's so much excess packaging in Japanese food products.
  
  Yeah, East Asia doesn't even try to minimise packaging. Environmentalism just isn't the same there or something.
  
  I might be wrong, but I assume that the food packaging is a necessity because of the extreme humidity, otherwise it will spoil very fast.
  
  Yeah, but do they wolf down a half pound of meat plus fried potatoes and a half gallon of sugar water four times a day in Japan?
- In fairness, I remember a time when everyone smoked in Japan and flicked cigarette butts all over the place.
- Plenty of consumerism and waste in Japan. For trash, it's socially acceptable to ask a store to use their trash can.

Get what you pay for. The minimum wage is still 7.25 federally. I can’t believe employers just choose not to pay livable wages.
Lose me with this “nobody wants to work anymore” bullshit. Nobody wants to pay anymore.
- It's another true half statement the middle management refuses to complete. "Nobody wants to work anymore for the wages offered for these types of jobs". Same old story as middle management accepting "the customer is always right" (and entitling shitty customers) without finishing it with "in terms of market trends"
- Don't worry, you'll soon get massive tax cuts for companies and their executives, while basic goods get 25%-35% pricier for the worker class due to the tariffs since the orange potato has to fun those tax cuts somehow.

Or, hear me out... carry it until you find one with room? If finding full trash cans "forces" you to litter, that says more about you being an entitled piece of shit than it does about anything else.
- "I couldn't find a single vacant public toilet, so I did what any sensible person would do and took a shit in the middle of the sidewalk." —OP, analogously
  
  Literally what happens in a lot of places. Even Europe has a noticeable pee smell sometimes.
  You're asking people to take on extra work. Some might. Others won't or even can't if they're really in a tight spot.
- Especially in the US where people drive everywhere more often than not. Keep a small trash bag in your car, empty it when you get home.
  
  The trouble with that approach is that my garbage cans fill up at home, and I'm too lazy to take them out to the dumpster.
- OP didn't say he littered. But of course we always assume the worst around here.
  Yeah! Fuck you OP!
  
  Well, they're blaming "lazy workers" instead of the litterers, so yeah, I'm inclined to believe the worst about them, too.

Personally, if I see a full trash can I will keep my trash with me until I can find a place to dispose of it. I can’t imagine just throwing it on the ground regardless of the can situation.
- I've had plenty of times where I get home and empty my pockets of the trash I accumulated with no can nearby.
  And if I try to put something in a can and it falls out, I'm taking it with me because I didn't succeed in throwing it away.
  Shrugging ans saying "well I tried" as you walk away isn't even trying.
- Japanese people do that as trash bins are very rare. It is an education issue and not the lack/full of trash binsy
- Same. And sometimes if it's convenient, I'll keep my recyclables like paper, cans, and glass until I have access to a sink to clean then (glass, maybe cans) and can toss them in my recycling system at home.
  Fyi, make sure your recyclables are dry before dropping them off/having them picked up
- You're a rare breed
- I would pull the top of all of these (without breaking it) and make all the trash fit, or, if absolutely required, carry it as you say
  
  Don't. You will catch a needle doing that and get hepatitis.

I feel like the solution to having some trash while the trash can is full, is to...just carry it with you till you find an empty one?
- otoh if you're lazy and not the best person, and if it's too much of a hassle to carry around…
  
  ...it should be legal for civilised people to nail it to your fucking forehead

This post gives me "people don't want to work anymore" vibes.
Another way to look at it is, people don't want to pay people to work anymore. Either the pay is such shit that the employees have no incentive to give a crap, or the employer doesn't hire enough people to get the work done.
- You don't even know how fast these damn bins fill up. I'm a janitor at McDonald's, and move between 5 locations (same franchise owner). The two that are in a highway rest stop kind of area that get the most customers have several cans around the parking lot. I empty them before the restaurant even opens, and all or most of them are already full by my first break. There's only ever 1 janitor on shift at a time and we can't be everywhere all the time. Something I have had to explain to the owner who constantly gets on my ass about the cans in the parking lot being full. "Do you want me to just spend all day making sure the garbage cans are empty or shall I do the other tasks I have as well?"
  The bins themselves look pretty large with the huge stone enclosure they're in; but the actual can inside is not even as big as a standard home kitchen bin, and the amount of trash generated by a single to-go meal from the restaurant is pretty nuts. And this is just from a fast food place. The bins placed by the city or municipality probably have even less of a chance to be serviced when the employees who do that are also in charge of cleaning the park bathrooms, mowing the grass, trimming trees and shrubs, fixing road signs, etc.
  
  Not all heroes wear capes.

There's a litter bin near my house in a rural area that the council has obviously forgotten about. It's been full for weeks!
You should see the amount of litter scattered around
Oh wait, it's absolutely none, because we're not fucking selfish savages
No fucking excuses for littering, ever. That's a societal problem, not a bin problem
- Eh, It's a bit of both. No amount of societal pressure will solve a complete absence of waste disposal infrastructure. It's a matter of making sure the sense of shame and/or duty is greater than whatever distance there inevitably is to a working bin.
  
  A bit of one and mostly the other. The other being "you don't drop shit on the ground expecting someone to clean up after you"
  You know, civilisation. Society. Decency
  Really boils my piss

Maybe we should reduce the amount of shit we have to throw away.
But also maybe pay the garbage men fairly, and tell the business or municipality that the garbage collection is insufficient for their needs.
- reduce, reuse, recycle.
  That shit is in order of most impactful.
  I buy as much as I can second hand. Doing so, I am not bombarded with trash. No boxes, no bags, no plastic wrap.
  We should 100% just not be producing all this trash. Coffee at home has zero waste, no plastic cup, no receipt, no carrier, no lid,...... do that shit everyday x millions of people. smh
  
  Coffee elsewhere is the exact same as long as you bring your own cup
- Don't garbage men have surprisingly handsome pay? Or is that just an urban legend I've fallen for?
  
  They are. But Sanitation workers wouldn’t be emptying any of these bins in my experience as a guy who lives in the US.
  
  They get paid more than most people would think but it's still not enough based on the hazards of the job. They get exposed to all sorts of nasty things that can ruin their long term health and they have increased likelihood that they'll get a life-altering injury at work.
  
  Hey I don't see any garbage men going on cruises in the bahamas or the carribbeans.
- Yeah, OP is complaining to the internet when they should be bugging town council. Although they seem to think it's just low-wage workers messing with them personally...

Perhaps one should ask why there is so much trash to be thrown away in the first place.
Bins wouldn't always be full if there was simply less trash to put in them.
- I worked for a park for a summer and it was an eye opener I'll tell you that much. They had someone (me!) basically just emptying trash cans all damn day and it wasn't enough! They filled up constantly.
- The to-go and eating while mobile are a big chunk of litter.
  A Dunks went in about a mile from a place I used to live, and where we lived was sort of a shortcut to one of the main roads from where the Dunks went in.
  Our road began to be littered with Dunkin’ plastic cups, coffee cups and to-go bags. People would finish items and toss the trash out the window.
  So taking things to-go and just throwing the trash down wherever is a big contributor.
  
  I really wish that I could eat at a place like a dunkin donuts and cut the shit, basically.
  I'll order one (1) sandwich. I have a reusable cup of coffee already.
  All I need is the sandwich, I do not need a paper bag, I do not need a full sheaf of napkins. I will begrudgingly accept the little sheet of wax paper that protects the sandwich.
- Your point is valid (as I read it "if you have less trash there will be less trash") but the path you used to get there is illogical (as I read it "if I have less trash, but people empty the trash at the same rate, this would not be a problem").
  OPs complaint is not that trash produced exceeds our capacity to remove it, it's that people are not removing it. This remains true regardless of quantity.
- Yup, same logic with traffic / transportation. So much money wasted on roads instead of regulations that stimulate mixed use neighborhoods, which would reduce the need for moving around and solve the issue at the root.
  
  Have you ever lived in an urban area? If so, did you stay within the approx 1 mile radius that is a comfortable walk for most people, a significant % of the time? No stores you liked that were a neighborhood over but not in your town? No friends across the bridge? My experience has been that I can get about 25% of what I want done within walking distance, for everything else I need transit or a vehicle, and I live in a relatively walkable mixed use urban area.

Meanwhile in Japan public trash cans are extremely rare and people are expected to bring their trash home and throw it away there. And they do. We are just a spoiled society.
- I forgot what event it was here in Germany (where there are plenty of trash cans, at least in the inner cities) but every group of Japanese tourists left places they visit cleaner than they found them. They were nice
  
  The FIFA games from a couple of years ago had an instance of that, with the Japanese spectators seen cleaning up in the stands after a game
- In the US we teach kids that trash men are suckers and idiots that didn't work hard enough in school! Also, that trash is an externality: Someone else's problem.
  "We pay taxes for people to clean that up! Why should I spend my valuable time doing someone else's job‽"
  It's an awful culture.
  
  "We pay taxes for people to clean that up! Why should I spend my valuable time doing someone else’s job‽”
  Same people that complain that taxes are the government stealing from them.
  
  I teach my kids that trash collectors are doing a necessary job that few want to do and that they get paid out the ass to do it.
  Garbage men make so much money
  
  I don't know anyone, personally, who thinks or says anything like that. Certainly none that teach it.

To be fair, I work at a job where I need to empty trash cans and I can honestly say I don't get paid enough to haul y'alls shit off to the dumpster. Y'all put dumb shit in there that you shouldn't be putting in there. It's at the point where I take my trash home with me.
- I worked at dunkin while I was in college and it didn't matter how often you took the trash out during the summertime, it was constantly overflowing from people cleaning out their cars into it.
  Not even kidding, one day I was on break outside and watched someone fill the freshly emptied can 3/4 full with all their fast food trash. As soon as the trashcan is empty people take the opportunity to clean out their cars. It's fucking weird.
  
  Honestly, it's because we are experiencing a massive, unprecedented trash crisis like never before. People cannot find places to throw away trash because there's so much of it everywhere. It's a lot of fast food packing materials, disposable silverware, plates, napkins, stuff like that. The fact that trash cans are full everywhere, constantly, and people are trying to clean out their cars all the time anywhere they can... It's simply screams trash crisis. People just cannot get rid of all the trash that they have, there's too much coming in and not enough ways to throw it away. We need to stop using disposable crap that goes into the garbage
  
  I'll still illegally dump my car's reffuse but at least I have the foresight to grab a trash bag and park by a sneaky dumpster I know to throw it in. Like yeah sure I put one trash bag in your commercial dumpster, but at least I'm not using your cans and making you bag/cart it to the dumpster!

That’s no excuse for littering - but it is super annoying.
There’s a dunks near me that moved its trash out of the drive in line WAAAAAAY over to the other side of the parking lot. Intentionally, so that I don’t bother them by throwing away, you know, the bag and napkins they give you.
That was the straw that broke the camels back - I just make my coffee now in the morning. It’s 1/100th the price and aggravation.

You should be more angry at the throwaway society we've become to create so much trash, rather than rant at the person who might be the sole employee until someone else comes in to do the regular morning cleanup duties.
So you think some full trash cans cause people to head out to the interstate and only then throw shit out their window? Guess they're making a statement or something...

Maybe you should try to do the job of the trash collectors for a week and see if it's really honest to say "Its unbelievable people go to work and choose not to do their job anymore".
Most jobs have lunatics in leadership positions who think people can survive on exposure or gift cards or a minimum wage that cannot afford 3 healthy meals a day.
"Unskilled Labour" is a lie told by business people to swindle money from hardworking people. Most of the rich people on the planet are scoundrels.

When the convenience store only has one employee, even often during peak times, that has to run the register, stock shelves, clean, and take out the trash, in that priority order, is it any wonder that the lower priority tasks just don't get done at all?

Bro I remember in Japan there were almost no trash cans anywhere. We fuckin lucky here
- All you need is a can return policy and some homeless.
  
  They don't even have that, they just have seperate bins for cans and bottles and people use them, and the only public places to throw away trash are in convenience stores. Which tbf exist like every 400m.
  There are exceptions but generally people just keep the city clean because they want to (and social pressure).
  Bottle/can deposit system can do a lot to make bins less full though. Japan just doesn't seem to need it.

If you treat people like trash, don't be surprised if they turn out to be garbage.

Keep it in your pocket. Not really hard tbh.
Of course other humans are trashy :/
- You keep your not quite empty styrofoam coffee cup in you pocket? Don't you get sticky and start to smell like overripe coffee beans?
  
  Keep that in your hand or bring a small bag to keep it inside.
  I wouldnt use a styrofoam cup anyway. Usually my thermos or drinking bottle

"I litter because the trash can was full"
And you're trying to think about perceived societal problems. How about introspection?

It's infuriating that we have so much trash that needs throwing away. Most of those cans were probably empty in the morning.

This just seems like a lot of words for the same ol' no one wants to work anymore bullshit

It's a societal problem.
https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-shibuya/article-a0002380/

People should take their trash home. It's great for awareness.

Just dump the can out on the ground and put your own trash in. Now you don't have to litter!

Same in the UK :-(

Don't worry once we get AI to take care of this we don't need those useless employees that we didn't hire to do the jobs to do the jobs anymore!
/s

This likely isn't a matter of people "not doing their job". Did you communicate that there was a problem with those trash cans being full? Likely, no one else did, either. Since everyone seems to expect everyone else to complain?
A similar thought process, even though I agree with your original sentiment that we need to have trash cans available: If you would have "done your job" and communicated, there may have been 4 more trash cans available.
- Partially agree, people are weirdly reluctant to ask for things to be fixed. I mean who among us has not just decided to skip out on telling the random employee that the bathroom is about out of soap? But how would they know?
  The answer of course is that businesses which generate tons of onsite waste and provide trash bins have people whose job it is to keep an eye on cleanliness which includes soap, trash, etc. on a regular basis. Much the same way when you go to a grocery store you're never out of carts. The difference is people use carts to buy, while garbage is different, so companies optimize for what makes them money at the cost of public good.

They probably emptied them when they opened and it’s been busy since it’s the morning rush.
But sure bitch and moan since you think they’re lazy instead of probably slammed by people like you wasting their time.
If they took time to empty it people like you would just bitch there’s a lineup instead, can’t ever be pleased eh?

Many times you can compact that stuff down with minimal effort. Just use the bag or whatever you're throwing away so that you aren't touching the other garbage with your hand.
- Unless you want hepatitis C, that's probably not the best idea. Nothing short of medieval plate armor would eliminate the risk of accidentally stabbing yourself on something.

Same reason they leave all their garbage in movie theaters

I swear there are less garbage cans in public areas now than 15 years ago. It's probably my fault for for doing quick car cleans and dumping at every gas station and retail store.
Side note: garbage is expensive these days
- Garbage is very expensive that's why you want to build a society that doesn't create unnecessary garbage

I could put trash in the bin for money.

Also in your country they say "trash" to things they are done with. Like oh you don't like this toy any more? It's trash now. Oh, the bag of jerky is empty? This plastic has completed it's cycle now and will have to be let go to circle the Atlantic