Was walking down the street the other day. Taking my Pfand to the shop to cash it in and go shopping. Broad day light, nice weather day after many ugly weather days so everyone is looking rather happy in general.
I pass by a local soccer club, lots of youths coming and going by bicycle, it must have been like 5 or 6 in the evening and it seems like one group just ended training and another is starting.
A sparkling white tesla drives up to the entrance of the club, while doing so: blocks the cycle path... was wondering why the kids had to be dropped off at the door with this nice weather.
Anyhow: car stops at the old clothes collection container, passenger gets out: it's a fit young woman (driver is a young man), she walks to the trunk of the car, casually takes out bags of trash and puts them next to the "old clothes" container. It's clearly not bags of old clothes, and she's no putting it in the container but next to it. She takes out a broken vacuum cleaner: casually puts it behind the container, between the soccer club and a small parking lot and a park.
I tell her this is not the place for that and ask her if she can load it in to her car again. She acts like she's from another planet and doesn't understand me. She knows perfectly well. See the guilt in her face. She stays silent, rushes back to the car seat. They drive off, I give the middle finger and a "you're a fucking wanker" sign. We meet again like 100 meters further where they have to stop for red traffic light. They try to ignore me and stare ahead, avoiding all eye contact. Not talking to eachother either. I don't start yelling or hitting the car or whatever, because I didn't wanna cause a scene at the youths/soccer club.
These were really very very "decent" and "normal" looking people. Young, wealthy, healthy, white, with a car. How hard is it to drive 4 minutes to the recycling plant at the edge of the city and dump your trash where it belongs for practically free?
"Normal" people who have dumped their trash where it doesn't belong: WHY?
Because the bin is full and if I don't, I'll be stuck with it for the next two weeks while the GF berates me over the smell.
As someone who used to work retail and in the restaurant industry, I feel bad, but the trash men always pick it up regardless and they get paid a hell of a lot more than I do, so my empathy can only extend so far.
They pick it up, but it takes a while, days or weeks depending on where you dump it. Meanwhile the trash in the streets attracts rodents and vermin. Old electronics end up in the environment, batteries can leak etc.
I get the smell part. I've "dumped" an opened empty can of fish sometimes, because SO can't stand the smell of it so it can't wait until trash pick-up day. I dumped it IN A TRASHBIN at a busstop, not randomly on the ground between houses, soccer clubs and parks... that's just disgusting. The trashbin at a busstop is emptied very regularly and a lot less accessible to most rodents and vermin, yet a lot more accessible to trash collection service from the city. My inconvenience (bad smell) is so not enough to justify just dumping trash anywhere without any care at all.
As for the part "they get paid": it costs a city a lot more to keep streets clean when everyone dumps everything everywhere, than to pay for arranged pick-ups. Everyone including you ends up paying the bill anyhow through taxes and/or less service from city in general because budget's too tight.