The Mysterious Motorcycle Vigilante Tracking Down Litterbugs

The Russian biker has a zero-tolerance policy for drivers who toss garbage out their car window.

Sep 17, 2014·

Culture and education editor Liz Dwyer has written about race, parenting, and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.

You see them when you’re driving or out walking—people who nonchalantly toss their cigarette butts, plastic water bottles, food wrappers, and tissues on the ground. Well, in Russia, thanks to a motorcycle-riding vigilante, some drivers who litter are getting a little reminder that garbage belongs in a trash can or a recycling bin.

The bold biker is throwing rubbish back in litterbugs’ faces, and she has filmed her anti-litter escapades, seemingly with the help of a camera mounted on her helmet. The woman’s interactions with a smoker who chucked her empty cigarette pack out a car window, a litterer who tossed a bottle, and someone who didn’t remember the proper place for his trash from McDonald’s are all pretty surprising.

A few commenters on YouTube have argued that the trash-vigilante video seems staged—how does the motorcyclist manage to be right there when someone is dropping litter they ask? However, a quick look at the streets and sidewalks of any city or town makes it clear that plenty of people are indeed throwing their garbage on the ground. Much of that debris floats down storm drains and then makes its way into our water supply. The end results are polluted beaches, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and animals that get seriously sick from eating waste—all because some folks are too lazy to look for a garbage can.

Given that the environmental stakes are so high (and that trash on the ground is just flat-out gross), let’s hope this audacious motorcyclist will get drivers to think twice the next time they’re planning to litter.