Don't Mess With Texas

One of the things about Texas that immigrants from other states, states like Oregon or Washington for instance, notice when they move to Texas is the astonishing amount of litter. It's everywhere. Floating in lakes, floating in rivers, blowing along highways, blowing across fields of green. It's everywhere.

In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today there was interesting litter news. Among typically goofy Star-Telegram verbiage, as in this gem, "Since its inception in 1986, the acclaimed Don't Mess with Texas slogan has attracted celebrities like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Willie Nelson. And it has helped dramatically reduce litter across the state."

Acclaimed slogan??? Who acclaimed this slogan? Is this typical Star-Telegram exaggeration? I'm surprised the article didn't say that states far and wide are green with envy over the Don't Mess with Texas slogan. And the slogan has dramatically reduced litter? Yikes. This means it actually used to be worse than it is now?

I've no idea how the following data was acquired, but according to litter surveys of the Texas Department of Transportation in 2001 1.25 billion pieces of litter were thrown on Texas. By 2005 the amount of litter had fallen below the billion pieces mark to a mere 827 million pieces of litter.

From 1995 to 2001 there was a 51% reduction in litter. From 2001 to 2005 litter was reduced 33%.

And now this truly astonishing statistic which sort of goes to show why it is still such a mess out there in Don't Mess with Texas land. 55 percent of Texans admit that they throw litter from their vehicles while driving the roads of Texas!

There is a Don't Mess with Texas website. It is not known how many Texans have visited this website or how many Texans know they are not supposed to Mess with Texas. I suppose one can extrapolate from that 55 percent who admit to being litterers and assume they have not been exposed to any of the acclaimed don't litter slogans or the Don't Mess with Texas website.

Now, go pick up after yourself.