> It's sort of our thing

Also it seems to be our thing to have an unbounded number of assholes who do stuff like throw rental scooters in rivers.

Don't worry. While we don't have the shopping card issue in Germany, we do have the escooter-in-river issue!

Here its mostly teens who throw rental escooters into rivers.

Bad for the rivers, of course, but it amazes me that the teens in Germany are actively engaged in keeping the sidewalks clean.

For the uninitiated, what's the subtext here? Is this about a trend in behavior of teens in Germany?

Asking for the same reason I asked OP my question. I was just in Berlin and, second only to Tokyo, I've never* seen such conscientious group of people, including teens.

* I'd actually place two other cities from that trip into the same #2 position: Zurich and Vienna.

Yes, it's unfortunately a trend to throw e-scooters into rivers. Unfortunately the government is still not collecting stats about this vandalism. Throwing e-scooters with batteries into rivers is dangerous, because the batteries contain poisonous metals. Unfortunately many people appreciate it when people throw these scooters into the river, because they are "annoyed be them when they are standing in their way on the sidewalk".

Some links:

(2025) 300+ e-scooters recovered from the Spree (river in Berlin) by Spree:publik activist Jan Ebel: https://www.morgenpost.de/bezirke/treptow-koepenick/article4...

(2024) Readers of "Neue Rottweiler Zeitung" mention e-scooters in the Neckar: https://www.nrwz.de/rottweil/e-scooter-laufen-gut-in-rottwei...

(2021) 500+ e-scooters were thrown from the Hohenzollern bridge into the Rhine: https://www.golem.de/news/mikromobilitaet-im-rhein-liegen-hu...

(2021) Dozens of e-scooters in the Main: https://www.fnp.de/frankfurt/chaoten-werfen-scooter-einfach-...

E-Scooters are literally blocking the sidewalks in big cities like Düsseldorf. It's a plague.