Earth Day 2013: Golden Gate Park pot party a major mess

[Leslie Valley]

San Francisco park workers and volunteers spent much of Sunday picking up and hauling away 10,000 pounds of garbage strewn all over the eastern part of Golden Gate Park known as Hippie Hill, the remnants of Saturday's annual yet unofficial pot-smoking bacchanalia.
But this year's annual celebration - which falls each year on April 20 and is known as "420" - drew a larger-than-average crowd of between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers on the warm weekend day. They proceeded to smoke, drink, eat and rack up more than $10,000 in costs for city crews to clean up the mess, ironically just before Earth Day.
Even by early Sunday afternoon, mounds of empty bags of chips, candy wrappers, snack containers, plastic cups, bottles and other debris still remained to be picked up, the fallout of what appeared to an enormous, collective case of the munchies.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Golden-Gate-Park-pot-party-a-major-mess-4451852.php#ixzz2REJlqirP

[Earth_First]

1. What a joke.

Speechless.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. What a bunch of slobs.

It's fine to have the munchies, but for crissakes, clean up after yourselves.

[Auggie]

4. Slobs and selfish, lazy people ...

I'm sure some picked-up after themselves, but for those who did not ...

[burnodo]

3. Unfortunate but not the norm

Seems to be bad planning on the part of the event organizers. I have volunteered for the Seattle Hempfest for many years, and organizers there make sure the park is spotless before it's all done.

[arcane1]

6. There are no event organizers, that's the problem. People just show up.

When we have actual events in GG park, this isn't a problem because it's prepared-for.

[hrmjustin]

14. Welcome to DU burnodo!

[burnodo]

16. Thank you!

I have to admit. I've been reading DU every day since late 2001. I saw all that trash in this picture and was disheartened. If I had been there, I would have helped to clean up as much as I could.

[arcane1]

5. Reminds me of the last world series parade/party we had here

Bridge-and-tunnel yahoos trashing the city, and local yahoos starting fires in the street

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Great way to win support for your cause,

idiots.

[burnodo]

12. I think you're making an assumption

That all of the people who went to the park on 4-20 were part of "the cause". I seriously doubt that this is the case in this situation. Pot activists would not leave the park trashed. I'm sure most of these people were just pot smokers, which encompass a variegated segment of the population.

[bemildred]

8. Go to a football game sometime, if you want to see a real mess, that's nothing.

Or check out Colorado Blvd. on January 2nd.

[Cha]

9. WTH! That's too bad they couldn't be

bothered to pick up after themselves. On an Earth Day Celebration or any day of the year.

[silverweb]

10. What a shame!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I'd have expected... I don't know... maybe a liberal-leaning crowd sensitive to and caring of the environment? Not a good way to gain public sympathy/support, morons.

[Archae]

11. This is nothing.

I talked to a guy who helped on the clean-up crew after the 1969 Woodstock.

He said they were cleaning up garbage for weeks.

[OnyxCollie]

13. It's a common problem for all large groups.

Public goods are underproduced. This is due to lack of will to lead, lack of sanctions, lack of surveillance.

It encourages free-riding and leads to suboptimal outcomes.

[Leslie Valley]

15. Guess I never looked at it that way before.

*puts hands up* *backs away slowly*

*turns and strides from the scene quickly*

[OnyxCollie]

19. Looking at it that way

is what separates political scientists and economists from the rest of the population.

[panader0]

17. 10,000 pounds of garbage from "between 10,000 and 15,000 revelers"?

Damn, that's a lot of trash per person.
Oh yeah, 10,000 dollars to clean up.

[TheManInTheMac]

18. Those plates are clean, though. Not a Cheeto crumb to be found.

[obliviously]

20. Think of all the carbon expelled and scattered!

[IMG][/IMG]

[jollyreaper2112]

21. People are the problem

Worked a religious rally over the weekend, families and old people. Still a giant mess. Venue had cleaning staff.