Litter from the heavens: It's raining trash!

Oh boy, what's news is news (we suppose), but Shanghai Daily still manages to crack us up with its solemn and hard hitting reportage from time to time. Ever litter off a high-rise building just because you can with absolute impunity? It seems that people who live closer to ground level are starting to complain about the steady flow of garbage falling from the sky: terrace-tossers are becoming a serious threat to public safety and sanity. Hit us with a poignant example, Shanghai Daily!

The problem resurfaced last Saturday when an apartment owner posted a notice in his building accusing neighbors living upstairs of twice throwing used condoms onto his balcony.

"I have never had such a disgusting 'windfall,'" said the owner, surnamed Yu, who lives in a Putuo District complex.

Yu nailed the condoms onto the community notice board, which caused controversy among neighbors and online.

Property management officials of Yu's residence said they would try to locate the condom thrower.

"We will have staff closely monitoring high-rise windows," officials said in a statement to residents.

And then, the hard hitting repercussions:

"However, officials said they had no jurisdiction to hand out penalties.

Warnings and education in manners were their only courses of action.

"They could easily offend again," said Xu.

Throwers inevitably deny involvement and as there is generally no direct evidence, government authorities find it difficult to impose penalties."

Yes, folks, it looks like the moral of the story is that the police can do virtually nothing about extreme littering short of personal injury or death: these guys put the cop in cop-out. In fact, it seems pretty silly to even attempt to punish people who litter from highrises, when everyone litters so much on ground level that it's turned into a psuedo art form.

Be warned, though: you could face up to 200 yuan in fines if you actually get caught. Of course, we think that would probably imply that the law would have to be enforced, and we have our doubts on that matter.

Photo by Chinaonmeta