Here in the northeast Georgia mountains live an old man and his young grandson. A small sum of money given by the government is their only regular income. Man and boy walk up and down the highway daily collecting soft-drink bottles for resale. I stopped once, and tried to give the man a carton of empty bottles. Polite, but firmly, he refused my "charity". Exercising what I thought was the only reasonable matter. I was driving their part of road, throwing bottles out of the car window, when the flashing blue light of a Georgia State Patrol car filled my mirror. I took my lecture on litter laws, and then told the officer about the man and the boy. We could see the old man from where we were stopped, bending over to pick up a bottle. The officer warned me again, and told me to move on. As we both pulled onto the road, I looked in my mirror just in time to see two bottles sail out of the passenger window of the patrol car and land unbroken on the grass. Why do the old man and his grandson collect soft-drink bottles?
They want to make the area clean and tidy. They want to recycle the soft-drink bottles. Local officials ask them to do so. Their income is not enough to support themselves.