By George Hopkins

OK, we’re kidding. But such thoughts do cross our minds as my wife and I hike the two miles daily that’s supposed to be good for us. Over the years we’ve found some amazing stuff: of course there’s been lots of loose pocket change; a ten dollar bill blowing in the wind; a current car license tag; cell phones; keys, including an expensive auto key fob; a wallet with an ID and a bus pass; mail that could’ve contained a check.

It’s become our year-round Easter egg hunt and it leaves us with a note of karmic satisfaction one feels when doing a good deed with no expectation of reward.

Alas, the streets of Peoria and all of Illinois are paved not with gold or even Easter eggs, but mostly litter.

There are aluminum cans which have value when recycled. Once we found a can of beer—unopened. (We didn’t drink it!) Plastic bottles abound, containing petrochemicals that could be recycled for cash if we lived in Iowa or 10 other states. (See http://www.bottlebill.org.) But not in Illinois.

Then there is the trash: plastic bags, paper cups, liquor bottles, cellophane candy wrappers, fast food detritus. Much of it will end up in the Illinois River, and they make Peoria look like Slob City instead of the Our Fair City, which it could be and should be.

What would it take to get rid of this mess, beyond what concerned citizens pick up on exercise walks?

Eleven states have ‘bottle bills,’ that encourage recycling. That would have gotten some trash off Peoria’s streets. But when Pat Quinn was Lt. Governor, he proposed a “bottle bill” that went nowhere in the General Assembly. It would have created jobs, but it was also construed as a tax, so it was poison. Bottlers didn’t want to “mess” with it, thus we all got a “mess” on our streets.

Other proposed (and rejected) ideas included a tax on paper cups and disposable items used for carryout food. Thus we did nothing to discourage litter at its source, not to mention obesity.

So what can we do, short of the Death Penalty to punish littering? Perhaps public whipping, Singapore style? Or “Public Shaming” like “Johns” arrested in prostitution stings? Might not the US Supreme Court approve a “Death to Litterers” bill in the wake of “Citizens United?”

If so, might we suggest starting with the worst of the worst—tobacco. Tobacco detritus leads all other forms of littering volume-wise, and bringing back spittoons is NOT the answer. Since smokers have an obvious death wish anyway, sparing them from lingering through years of sickness and suffering would almost be an act of kindness. But we’ll leave the messy Death Chamber details to others, even as smokers leave their messy butts for the Butt Fairy to pick up—it certainly won’t be us….

So we continue to walk our neighborhood, picking up what can be recycled or returned to their owners (the wallet, the keys, the cellphone) and throwing into the trash bin the stuff that not even the recycler will take.

Our few blocks look a little cleaner for a few days, until the litter replaces itself. Meanwhile maybe we’ll find another $10 bill. At least we’ll get free exercise.

George Hopkins is professor emeritus of history at Western Illinois University in Macomb.