by Ethan Johnson
December 23, 2007

Conventional wisdom holds that if one focuses on a particular thing, one will start to see more of that thing. For example, if one decides to buy a new car, and determines which kind, suddenly more of that kind of car are seen in traffic. Or suddenly there is a new aggressive advertising campaign devoted to that vehicle. Conventional wisdom strikes again, as I have been mulling over certain topics in advance of forthcoming articles, and as luck would have it, I'm finding an abundance of supporting material. Case in point:

Today's "Pearls Before Swine" comic strip posits a unifying theory of the human condition called "Airplaneseatreclineology", which plays out like so: Two people are sitting in cramped conditions in an airplane. The first person can recline his/her seat to increase his/her comfort, but that comfort can only come at the expense of the person seated directly behind. So why does the first person recline without considering the well-being of the second passenger?

The front passenger reclines because the airline said it was OK to do so. Therefore, the well-being of the passenger seated directly behind does not need to be factored into the decision to recline.

Hoo whee, I could branch off into about 50,000 tangents right now. Focus!

I'll keep my remarks brief today, and expound later. In short, when I see litter scattered all over town (not just on my walking route), I think darkly that whoever is contributing to the mess simply doesn't care. They threw their trash "away" - in this case, into the wind - and that solved their immediate problem of being burdened with the slightest bit of trash to dispose of properly. I was discussing this problem with a friend recently, and hit on a teaching moment for those who care to receive it.

One of the core tenets of "Lean", especially in Japan, is the refusal to send problems downstream. I'll use this analogy: Imagine that you lived at the source of a mighty river, like the Mississippi*. Whatever you toss into the river will ostensibly flow downstream to the Gulf of Mexico, if not impeded. If you chose to, you could dump toxins into the river, clearing them away from your town, and yet reaping the benefit of cleaner water so long as the dumping was downstream of the river source. However, that's not fair to everyone else who is reliant on the river for their well-being. You don't have to put up with the consequences of toxic dumping, in theory, but if you ever moved downstream you'd reap the repercussions in spades.

So too in the assembly line. If you know something is causing defects on the line, fix it. If you can't fix it, stop the line until the problem can be fixed. Pawning the problem off onto the next workstation just delays the inevitable. They'll investigate root cause, trace it back to you, and you'll have a lot to answer for. Better to deal with the problem immediately than let it fester.

And that's how it is with litter. This may seem ridiculous that I'm taking notice of an ages-old problem, but every bag I collect and dispose of properly puts an end to that much trash not only blighting the scenery, but spreading a host of other problems. Animals could contract and spread diseases that they wouldn't have normally come into contact with, for instance. I might get a fleeting sense of satisfaction with each bag I collect, but looking at a larger radius around my home, it's disheartening and demotivating to realize how enormous the problem is. And I'm talking about the "clean" suburbs here, not a gritty metropolis.

Seeking out root cause is fairly easy. All I need to to is walk over to the nearest elementary school. There's trash everywhere. The official bins are overflowing, so it's not for lack of custodial services. No, the decision to toss items aside rather than walk the extra few feet to the trash can are being made by children and adults alike.

I figure someone is either telling these kids it's OK to litter, or nobody is holding them accountable to higher standards.

And I figure the problem isn't going to improve until someone either teaches them that it's not OK to litter, or holds them to higher standards.

For what its worth, I make a point of leaning forward and asking the person in front of me in the airplane to give me fair warning before "just" slamming the seat into my knees. And for my part, I look behind me to judge clearance, or better yet, sit in an exit row so there's room enough for both parties.

Consideration is a two-way street. <EM>

* Sure, the Mississippi is muddy, but mud doesn't automatically equate to "full of toxins".