Fallen Shopping Carts

With a grocery store nearby, I can walk to and from the store. I'm of course bound with the items I can physically carry, but this led to an interesting discovery.

Why are there so many abandoned carts? I'm not talking about a cart left on a sidewalk, but carts hidden in bushes, thrown in the water and/or broken beyond belief. These aren't carts hidden within visibility of the grocery store, but carts minutes away on trails and sidewalks.

The Food Marketing Institute reports that nearly 2 million shopping carts are stolen each year, translating into a per-store loss of $8,000 to $10,000 annually — and that’s only in the food industry.
FMI

It seems this is a problem that plagues grocery stores worldwide and perhaps just a nature of the beast, that is the human population. We steal, break and destroy and that translates to every avenue of society, including grocery stores.

So the above photo is one of the carts I found thrown in the water on the bridge towards the way home. This cart cannot fall in by any natural force, due to huge railing on this bridge. Due to placement of the cart, it did not enter via the side of the water. So it was lifted and dropped into the water. Who did this and why?

You take a closer look and see a myriad of trash also in the river, so that explains that. Humans being humans. Why pollute the environment we all share? We not only share this environment with other humans, but a basically unlimited amount of organisms.

This reminds me of a series I just finished - Our Planet.

Throughout this series, a common denominator hinted by the narration for any destruction of habitat is: humans.

Frankly it makes sense. You don't have to wander far from anywhere you live to see the destruction we cause. It bothers me greatly, because I can't even walk 10 minutes to my grocery store without seeing fallen shopping carts everywhere.