Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
By Arnie Alpert, Active with the Activists
CANTERBURY—Perhaps due to last year’s right-wing boycott, Bud Light has fallen from its multi-year position at the top of the trash heap, replaced by Coors Light. Counting all its brands, Anheuser Busch InBev still dominates beer-based litter, but the relative scarcity of Bud Light cans along my local roadside was quickly apparent in this year’s survey.
Other brands that performed strongly in the aluminum can division were Natty Daddy and a newcomer, White Claw Hard Seltzer. As it has in previous years, Twisted Tea remains popular with the local litterati.
If you’re not familiar with this trashy survey, it’s one I conduct in conjunction with Canterbury’s annual spring roadside cleanup. My current assignment is the 0.6 mile stretch of Shaker Road from Baptist Road to the Loudon town line. By classifying and counting the trash I find each year, I can analyze the drinking habits of litterers. Or maybe it’s the littering habits of drinkers. Whatever. I’ve been doing it off and on since 2013, and in that time, Bud Light has always been the King of Trash. Its reign may be over.
Last year’s roadside cleanup took place about the time that social conservatives launched a Bud Light boycott to protest the brand’s attempt to sell more beer to the LGBTQ community. I’m struck by the increasing frequency of conservative and Republican attacks on capitalist enterprises for trying to sell more of their services or products. In this case, the Bud Light boycott appears to have had an impact. According to the Harvard Business Review, “Comparing purchase behavior post-controversy to the same time period in 2022, we estimated that in the three months immediately succeeding the boycott, 15% of previously loyal Bud Light customers shifted their primary spending to other brands as part of the boycott.” In response to the boycott, joining a phenomenon now termed a “buycott,” my friend Bob started drinking Bud Light. But Bob will have to step up his consumption if he wants to affect the statistics.
Other reports said that Bud Light was surpassed in popularity last year by Modelo Especial. The NY Times reported, “The switch occurred at the start of June, after Bud Light had held the No. 1 spot for about 20 years. In the four-week period that ended July 8, Modelo made up 8.7 percent of retail beer sales in the United States, compared with Bud Light’s 6.8 percent.” Perhaps Modelo drinkers are less inclined to littering; I found no Modelo cans in the gravel and brush alongside Shaker Road.
Citing beveragologists, the Times also reported that Americans are drinking less beer, with craft beers, imports, and hard seltzer displacing domestic legacy brands. That seems to be borne out by the roadside trash in my stretch of roadside.
A good example would be Buzzballz, which sells its “fun, innovative cocktails” in cute spherical plastic containers, perfect for taking to the beach or a party, according to the company’s website. I suppose they are also easy to hold while driving, and sized just right to toss out the window.
If you assume beer, hard seltzer, and Buzzballz drinkers are more likely to litter than consumers of non-alcoholic beverages, the statistics provide support. But don’t discount the litterary habits of those who drink soda, coffee, water, GatorAde, and, yes, milk. Pepsi triumphed this year in the plastic bottle competition, with more than 4 times as many empties as Coke. Dunkin topped McDonalds in plastic cups left by the roadside.
And in case you were wondering, Poland Springs and Crystal Geyser Roxane tied at 3 empties each in the bottled water division, but also I picked up six water bottles with their labels missing. Someone must be trying to mess with my research.