Is "Take your litter home" an oxymoron?

by Gray Elkington

When does something become litter?

If litter is rubbish that has been discarded and abandoned, then the line, “Take your litter home” is arguably an oxymoron. We can take other people’s litter home but, by this definition, we don’t ourselves have any litter unless we abandon it, i.e. by not taking it home!

If litter is merely rubbish still in our possession that we could leave or take home, then we are all creators of litter, and that then takes the negative charge off the words litter and, by extension, litterer.

I’d say that we need “litter” to have a negative charge. So I’d argue for “litter” to be used for rubbish discarded and abandoned. Anything not discarded and abandoned can be called rubbish or waste or packaging, etc.

Your rubbish, your responsibility.