Few activities get more public support than picking up litter from the side of the road. But to mark Earth Day, I’m about to argue that we shouldn’t do it.

Wait – don’t go! Hear me out.

This idea has been percolating in my head for a while and coalesced after John Kiernan of New London sent me an email titled “50 years of litter picking in New London.”

Kiernan, 74, runs New London Litter Pickers, one of three groups in town that uses an organized effort to collect discarded trash from public spaces. Lots and lots of trash.

“Dunkin, Mr. Bud, Marlboro Man, Twisted Tea, all those shooter mini bottles, tobacco juice and urine-filled water bottles. Ick,” he wrote as we started to correspond. “Hey, this weekend I picked up 13 political signs. I hate those signs. “

Years of picking have taught him some interesting lessons, like this: “Once a month, I pick exits 11 and 12 on I-89. Mostly off ramps; not much trash on the on ramps.”

Why would litterbugs prefer off-ramps to on-ramps? You could probably build a sociology Ph.D. around that question.

Another interesting tidbit is a growing collection of  2-liter Coke bottles that are “squeezed flat and the caps screwed back on tightly.” And I do mean a collection: “I found 9 more yesterday.  That brings my total to 244 over the past 5-6-7 years.”

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Plus, he’s got insight on fruit consumption. “Are you running into an astounding number of banana peels, like I am? Banana sales must be through the roof – I pick up 10 or 20 every time I go out.”

Obviously it’s great that civic-minded volunteers like Kiernan mean we don’t have to see a multitude of peels, containers and urine bottles (ick!) when we drive around. I guess it takes a village to raise a clean roadside.

So why do I argue against it? Because it’s an enabling behavior.

The corporations that make the stuff that ends up being discarded have spent a lot of time and money over the decades to convince the world that the mess is our problem, not theirs. The best-known example is the “Crying Indian” public service announcement in which an actor pretending to be Native American tearfully laments our trashy ways, but there are plenty of others.

Those campaigns are largely the doing of Keep America Beautiful, an organization created in the 1950s by manufacturers of metal and glass containers (plastic joined later) who wanted to make sure that nobody expected them to spend any time or money keeping America beautiful.

Making outdoor clean-up sound like our patriotic duty was a perfect way for them to dodge questions about why they didn’t take steps to tackle the problem, like putting refundable deposits on their containers or using their own money to pay people to do the work that they say they admire.

It’s part of a long-running, carefully organized avoidance of responsibility, and every time we do trash-collecting work for free, we are enabling it. It’s almost counter-productive.

When I mentioned this thought to Kiernan, he acknowledged it but said he has moved on.

“I stopped complaining and stopped trying to solve the problem. I don’t see that the problem can be solved. Instead, I just go out and pick it up,” he wrote in our exchange. “The more I pick, the more I enjoy it.  To drive over a freshly picked roadway is so very gratifying. And it beats the hell out of working out in a gym.”

Now comes a confession: I pick up litter, too. I carry a bag when I go for walks and bring home the cans and bottles and other garbage that I encounter because it’s annoying to see it.

And honestly, I don’t actually think people should stop picking up litter. If nothing else, it’s a great reminder of the effectiveness of community action.

But we shouldn’t accept the fact that this situation is inevitable. So here’s what you do:

Every time you pick up garbage outdoors, remind yourself to badger elected officials to support legislation that makes those who produce products responsible for trash rather than those who consume the products.  It’s the only way we’ll ever get off the litter-picking treadmill.

Happy Earth Day!

David Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@cmonitor.com.