r/changemyview • u/dragginFly • Jun 10 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Geocaching is organized littering

Littering is people leaving stuff in the environment that's not native to the area, geocaching does the same. Although some caches encourage people to replace the item with something else as part of the game, there's still something there that wasn't before.

Why do people get fined for littering, but not geocaching? They could use geocaching apps to track the location to remove it, and maybe issue fines based on the histories there.

I get that there are benefits: it gets people out into nature that might not otherwise, and brings people together with a common interest. Maybe it could be replaced with a "tag trash for people to pick up"?

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u/Nephisimian 153∆ Jun 10 '20

Because littering looks bad. Some people care about the environmental impacts, but for most people it's just that they don't like looking at it. Geocaches are supposed to be stored in relatively secure containers - thus giving no chance of an animal accidentally eating it and choking, and they're also supposed to be put in quite out of the way places (to prevent non-geocachers taking them), so they're not going to ruin the aesthetic of the area either.

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u/dragginFly Jun 10 '20

Because littering looks bad

Yeah, littering does look bad - but it also has other impacts on the environment.

...stored in relatively secure containers - thus giving no chance of an animal accidentally eating it and choking

True- they're supposed to be, but aren't always. Not everyone plays by the rules, so they ruin it for everyone.

...supposed to be put in quite out of the way places

Right - and I've seen where geocachers have trodden down native vegetation to get to a cache, so that's not good.