Culture Eats Trash Cans for Breakfast

A brief note before I begin: as you may have noticed, I took two weeks off from publishing here. I appreciate your patience. When I decided last January to publish these newsletters every Thursday, I didn’t anticipate that Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years would all fall on Thursdays. My two weeks off were enjoyable, but, like Frank Costanza, “I’m back, baby!”There’s a story—probably an apocryphal one—about how Walt Disney decided where to put trash cans at Disney World. He bought a hot dog and then walked while he ate. He counted his steps and stopped when he had finished his hot dog. That’s how far apart the garbage cans should be. The moment you find you have trash in your hand—through the magic of Disney—a trash bin should appear before you.The story probably isn’t true, but it does point to Walt’s obsession with cleanliness. Rubbish, Walt believed, should never be visible to the park’s visitors. But placing a bin here or there isn’t enough to drive cleanliness amidst a culture of litter. Even when it comes to refuse, I suppose, culture eats strategy for breakfast... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chapainsights.substack.com/subscribe