I have a modest proposal for Fiesta 2017: The Rivard Report would like local artists to contribute to an exhibition of Fiesta litter. My theory: Allowing people to experience litter in an unconventional way might change a city’s bad habit.
Sociologists say there is a direct link between education and raising people’s consciousness about litter, so I have concluded after many years of expressing my distress over Fiesta litter that the answer might lie in art. It certainly does not lie in handing out free garbage and recycling bags.
Anyone out there interested in curating an interactive exhibition of litter? If so, the Rivard Report will help plan and raise money to fund the artists and the project. We have one year to prepare; ‘The Fiesta Litter of San Antonio’ could bring new visitors to local museums and public exhibition spaces. It would make a great traveling exhibition for area schools.
We could take it to SXSW next year.
Seriously, imagine walking into the Witte or the DoSeum and seeing an educational presentation on the history of human waste and litter, from prehistoric times to Fiesta. Tens of thousands of years ago, hunter-gatherers were nomadic and few in number relative to the vast land expanses they traveled, hunted and occupied. Everything they left behind on the trail was biodegradable and easily absorbed by the earth.
Not so anymore. Storms wash San Antonio’s manufactured litter – beer cans, plastic bottles and bags, styrofoam cups, and fast food wrappings are the most commonly found items – into the sewers and down the entire length of the San Antonio River, one of America’s finest urban linear parks.
Refuse becomes entangled in the wildscape and enters the food chain. I’ve wrestled plastic six-pack packaging off a shore bird, and I’ve seen an egret with styrofoam in its beak. Nesting material, I could only hope.
Children learn from what they see the adults do, more than what they hear the adults say. When adults litter, it sends a signal to the children: It’s okay, don’t get up, just enjoy the parade. They have people who get paid to clean it up, don’t they?
Littering is cultural, and by that, I’m not speaking in code about race or ethnicity. I see as much garbage under the bleachers where the privileged sit in Alamo Plaza as I do along Broadway and Commerce streets.
San Antonio, sad to say, is a littering city. It’s part of who we are. Not all us, of course, but enough to help fix the city’s identity. The Battle of Flowers took place on Earth Day this year. City officials published an op-ed on the Rivard Report last week promoting a “Green, Fit and Friendly Fiesta.” I give local officials a lot of credit for a proactive campaign to make it easy for parade and festival-goers to dispose of garbage and recyclable materials. It’s made a difference, but we are not on our way to becoming a green city.
Why aren’t our efforts working better?
I recently spent several days in Denver, and happened to be downtown for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Local media reports said as many as 400,000 people were expected along the parade route. The reporter in me doubted that crowd estimate, but I can report that the good people of Denver were out in force to eat, drink and party.
As I walked the parade route later that evening, I was struck by the general absence of litter. There was some litter, certainly, but the streets and sidewalks were not carpeted with trash like San Antonio after a parade, or Brackenridge Park after an Easter holiday.
Standing along downtown Denver’s 16th Street Mall, a pedestrian byway closed to general vehicle traffic, I watched a young man walk toward me where I stood adjacent to a multi-purpose waste and recycling receptacle that are found throughout the center city. He stopped to dispose of a paper bag.
I introduced myself as a visiting journalist from San Antonio and remarked on how litter-free the streets appeared after the parade.
“Littering’s not cool, man,” he said, walking away.
There is a story that made French newspapers about Japanese fans at the 1998 World Cup in Paris, which my family was fortunate enough to attend. I later found an account of the same story online, recounting how Japanese fans cleaned up the stadium before they left, even gathering litter left behind by French fans. You can read it here.
What lessons can we take from people in two different cities in two different parts of the world? In both instances, the people believe in treating the environment with respect, and showing common courtesy in leaving a place like they found it. It’s important to their self-identity.
San Antonio can break its bad habit and transform itself into a litter-free city in time to celebrate its 300th birthday in 2018. The official dates are in May of that year, but we all know the party will get started when Fiesta rolls around that April.
The City of San Antonio can help lead us there, but elected leaders who have nothing to say right now about our litter problem will have to start talking about it. City Council will have to push the nonprofit Fiesta San Antonio Commission into a more ambitious anti-litter campaign. The money the City now spends throwing every available body and vehicle into the frenzied post-parade cleanup henceforth should be billed as an expense to event organizers. The Fiesta Commission generates significant revenues, even after some very extravagant partying is expensed. Most of its signature events take place on City-owned property and streets.
The City’s Downtown Operations Department, Parks and Recreation Department, Solid Waste Management Department, and the San Antonio Police Department all play major roles in making Fiesta clean, safe and secure for the hundreds of thousands who participate from near and far. The cost to taxpayers is substantial. How much? I don’t know, but the Rivard Report will ask the City for a formal accounting of the 2016 costs and publish those numbers when we receive them. We should not have to pay to clean up the mess.
Nine years ago an economic impact study estimated Fiesta spending in 2007 at $284 million, meaning it is now $325 million or more. The City of San Antonio reported at the time that it received $4 million in additional sales tax revenue from Fiesta. As far as I know, the Fiesta Commission never released the actual report, but it is oft-cited as fact. Fiesta Commission executives wrote in a 2013 Express-News op-ed that the study was being updated along with Fiesta’s impact on its recipient charities.
The Fiesta Commission’s web page on the 10-day event’s charitable impact is also light on actual numbers, although it reports its 100-member organizations award $600,000 in scholarships and donations. That seems like a small number in the scheme of things, given the event’s size.
Fiesta’s 125th anniversary celebration closes in the coming days, too late to do anything truly transformative about the event’s massive littering problem. Incremental improvements have been made, but nothing to even remotely change our image as a city whose people openly litter en masse.
I am serious about our offer to work with artists to take some of our Fiesta litter and present it in ways that enlighten people. Finding a museum willing to give us space at the risk of offending some of its benefactors might be an issue. If so, we can design our own pop-up museum.
There is a moral obligation to educate our children in the broadest sense, and to lead by example. A provocative, interactive exhibition could counter what our city’s children are not learning from adults about the impact of trash on the environment. It could turn many of them into environmental ambassadors who might then influence the very adults in their lives whose values are lacking.
Viva Fiesta, yes. But, viva the environment, our streets, parks, and the San Antonio River, too.
Top image: City crews in Alamo Plaza clean up Fiesta litter following the First Flambeau Parade 2016. Photo by Robert Rivard
Related Stories:
Easter Campers Leave Piles of Trash in Brackenridge Park — Again
Post-Easter Trash: Cleanup at Brackenridge Park
Littertown: Broadway’s Fiesta Hangover
Great piece.
The poets will help.
I am 100% in favor of this movement. I’d be willing to see this into completion!
“Littering’s not cool.” This should be the message the Fiesta kings give to kids as they visit all the schools.
Love the idea… Let me know how we can help.
Recently back from Japan where there is no litter. I was told the school’s have no janitorial staff and that the students clean their classrooms, the school, and school grounds every day before leaving. Litter isn’t acceptable. San Antonio does have a problem. Thanks for the article.
Setting examples…lost count of how many people IN the last night’s parade were throwing confetti and giving stickers, candy, and plastic toy junk. It seems like a little thing until you see scores of the toys or the litter of it heaped in piles as the crowd exits. The bags the city distributes are a good start. Why don’t they run pick up carts periodically in the parade? e.g., like a busboy periodically clears tables at a restaurant. There are enough pauses in the flow and it would be no less attractive than our city water board honoring a giant toilet on its float. People would see the volume. Also, it would seem a more realistic support to the volunteers (?) who passed out the bags. It’s incredible the city expects those tiny teams to pick up and move all those full bags.
Some have the attitude that it’s someone else’s job to pick up their litter. Unfortunately this is not just at Fiesta. Happens all over town at parks, streets and in parking lots. Cigarette butts out the window. Some people will put their dirty diapers outside their car and drive off when they could just as easily drive to where the trash receptacle is to place it. Unfortunately too many just don’t get cleaning up after themselves. I keep a trash box in my car for my trash and dump it when at home. SO simple a thing to do to protect our city and its environment.
We manned an entire section last year for both the day parade and night parade and were completely disgusted at the amount of trash left around the chairs we broke down over two days. But something else was completely evident– the last of trash cans on the route. Mesh recycling bags are great… but nowhere near enough. I am not sure if the trash cans are removed because of safety concerns… but there was not ONE empty can available in our section of close to 400 chairs. I am not saying adding trash cans (and making sure they are emptied throughout the event) is the answer…. but in the spirit of trying to solve this mess we are sure not making it easy for those folks who want to clean up after themselves.
I think it was better in the Maverick Park bleacher area. The Battle of Flowers women did a FANTASTIC job of policing (nicely, of course) the area and the yellow recycling bags were helpful. Yes, there are those who don’t care, but I do think that area looked less like a dump after the Battle of Flowers. I saw lots of parade attendees picking up stuff.
I want to know more about the costs of all of the support the city provides. The disruptions are substantial. No one mentions the costs VIA incurs. Life goes on during Fiesta. People still have to get to jobs on the bus. I’d also try to get Fiesta Commission financials with salaries and expenses. Time for some sunshine!
It’s not about litter, it’s about responsibility. Parents must know it and embrace it before they can teach their children about it. (Also the need for staff to empty bins continually during events.)
Some people do pick up their litter and recycling. However, we end up taking it home with us for lack of trash and recycling bins along and just off the parade route.
I always enlist the kids around us to help pick up trash. I don’t really care if their parents don’t like it. If they’re creating trash, they can pick up trash.
Also? Maybe stop with the confetti cannons. How is that setting a good example?!!
would be interesting to post a pic of typical collected trash and then a yr later what that same trash looks like. To see what biodegradable and non degradable trash is left.
We ran the Flambeau fun run last night and were dismayed to observe that the trash cans were full even before the parade began in the forming area and along the start of the race. So how can it be expected that folks will even try to properly dispose of trash if they have no place to do so? For Easter Brack and the parades, put out LOTS more and bigger trash cans and at least give folks a chance to do the right thing. With the trash cans overflowing, what’s one more cup on the ground?
I know. Getting to the trash cans along the parade route to empty them is a huge challenge. But maybe just put lots and lots of barrels along the route that don’t get emptied until the next day and see what happens. Lots and lots of barrels not just one every couple of blocks. Or maybe have the chair sellers (Boy Scouts, churches, etc.) tie a black plastic trash bag to every fourth chair. Yes an expense, maybe get the cost of the bags underwritten and put a simple sticker on the bag with the sponsor name. And put a “pick up your trash” message on the parade tickets. Or have volunteers (I know) walk along the parade route before the parade starts with large photos of trash from the year before and hand out trash bags and urge each section to try to be cleaner than the next one. I don’t know exactly what will work, but need to do something to get those in the chairs to be personally responsible for their own mess.
And absolutely start educating kids. I remember when we were little my dad would actually turn the car around if one of us let a piece of paper blow out of the car window. We were taught NEVER litter. And yes when camping we had to not only pick up whatever trash we had but go around and pick up whatever someone else left behind. My husband’s parents were equally as clear on not littering (from another state so not just a Texas thing.)
Julian Jenkins::: did you have this problem too?
do it.
i came from a low income and low education level. this isn’t the thread. i have found that there is a direct correlation between the level of pride has in how one wants others to perceive oneself and the level of concern they have for their surroundings. as my parents taught me…just because we were poor there is no reason why we cannot look our best and behavior ourselves and leave the places we visit better for having visited them.
One more source of pollution that this author did not address is the manure left behind by the horses. Yes, pooper scoopers follow the steads with shovels, but a good amount remains that will only be washed off by rain into our creeks and river. We were just at the Pearl today and the aroma was rich of manure. The bacteria levels in the river will rise significantly after our next rain.
Why would you want to make artists deal with garbage? That’s kind of insulting. It’s SA’s problem, let them deal with it. People get paid to clean up after SA’s bad habit, don’t make the artists deal with it.
Go to third world countries and what do you see? Litter everywhere. Bring a million or so people to your city from third world countries and … you see litter everywhere. San Antonio was not “a littering city” when I was a boy—what’s changed since then? Your readers can put two and two together. Your argument that “everyone’s doing it” doesn’t change who started it. There’s a certain point at which it feels helpless.
Get the Spurs to sponsor a “trash float” that looks like a wide, low basketball hoop with little basketball net skirting—you “throw” your garbage into the huge hoop. Fun for the whole litterbug family.
Great piece! Thank you, Bob, for keeping a light on this serious issue. A bunch of things come to mind while reading this and the comments: 1) if the bins are full, why can’t golf carts run up and down the route picking them up during the parade? 2) Confetti guns–can we ask for these to be biodegradable? 3) Education–let’s not all just put it on the parents to teach their kids. Nothing will ever change that way. We need teachers, King Antonio, etc to all push this message over and over again–skits, challenges at school, etc. Nothing better than a hyperactive kid to yell at other adults to clean up their trash. One of the few things the 90s did really well was teach kids to respect the environment. Let’s bring that back!!
Probably most importantly, we DO need to review the financials from Fiesta and determine all the costs to the city. If sales taxes only go up $4mm, that does not seem like enough to me to offset all the additional overtime labor required to put these events on. This is simple stuff that needs to be done each year. If we’re running on a deficit, there are many ways we can raise more money, but we need to know how much to raise first!
They can have garbage patrols in-between the parade groups gathering trash until people can learn to pick up after themselves. Maybe even an incinerator on wheels. Wouldn’t that look cool at the night parade?
Or they can also place plastic bags at the end of the seating and passed around like church collection.
Maybe make Danny Green or his sidekick “Bin” a Parade Marshall next year where they throw out trash bags like beads and show how they are used?
They need to do something…
There are some great ideas in the comments for follow-up reporting. For example, there are city ordinances that prohibit confetti cannons, silly string, and poppers, but who bothers to enforce them? Likewise, city ordinance prohibits items from being tossed from moving parades, but everyone does that too.
Why are the “big” parades such a problem? The King William Fair, an official Fiesta event, hosts its own small parade and manages to clean up after itself. The Fair and parade may not be a perfect clean up, but we try. (Confetti is very hard to pick up and keep out of the river). Clean up is a matter of logistics, as many readers above have noted by offering their own solutions. Who exactly is in charge?
City ordinance and the Fiesta Commission have “green” certifications for events, but these efforts are apparently not enough. What ever happened with the old saying, “Don’t mess with Texas”?
There is a new twist to the trash this year. Apparently some of the cascaron builders have filled their eggs with plastic chips rather than paper. This causes a huge mess and hurts any bird or animal that might try to eat these plastic chips that float on the water or lie on the street. Don’t how we police that, but the rule should be paper only for cascaron filler.
I actually love the idea to have the Spurs involved. Large hoops placed over cans with a Spurs insignia would incentivize successful waste disposal. Maybe have a bit where the coyote grabs someone’s trash from the front row and slam dunks it?
As for confetti cannons, paper should be mandatory, but what about replacingit altogether with the colored corn starch used in color runs?