I reached the spot early one Saturday. The suspects are long gone, but the evidence remains. One vehicle got stuck on the curb, another overturned in the parking lot, a third swept across the road like a heap of metal. My question: Why don’t people return their shopping carts?
I’m a psychologist who has spent the past decade studying how we think about our behavior in relation to others. Perhaps the choice to not return a shopping cart seems trivial, but what we do with our carts says a lot about how we think about others and what we believe we owe each other (or not).
i have Never Understand why people don’t keep their cars away. In high school, I worked as a shopping cart attendant at my local grocery store, moving carts around. Since then, for reasons I can’t fully explain, the failure of people to return their carts bothers me perhaps more than it does, every trip to the grocery store a reminder of a special kind of destruction that humanity is capable of.
Then last year, in the Wegmans parking lot on a windy weekend day, it hit me. Not a cart, but a feeling that I could do something productive about it.
So I approached the question of shopping cart abandonment the same way I approach any puzzle about human behavior: I collected data. My evidence came from an unexpected source: Cart Narcs, a small group whose mission is to encourage cart withdrawal, sometimes gently, sometimes less so. They upload their efforts to their YouTube channel, which contains hundreds of videos recorded between 2020 and 2025, mostly in California, but also in Nevada, Texas, Louisiana, New York, Canada, Australia, and England. It turns out that cart abandonment has no regional limits. As of September 2025, these videos have collectively received over 90 million views. (See below for one of the tamer videos.)
I observed a total of 564 encounters between cart narcs and cart abandoners. These do not represent an absolutely random sample of interactions, but together they capture a broad cross-section of everyday behavior. (And, as far as I know, it’s the largest collection of shopping cart behavior available.) Most interactions start the same way: Someone abandons their cart and Cart Narc requests that they return it. At this point I documented what happened next, transcribing the parking lot’s reactions verbatim. To be clear, this was not a quick process. I spent dozens of weekend hours hunched over my computer, pausing and replaying YouTube videos. People in my life called it “concerning” and a “waste of time.” I called it research.
My approach was inductive, which is a fancy way of saying that I had neither a theory nor a hypothesis. Instead, I let the data speak for itself, coding people’s raw (and wildly unfiltered) reactions. Over time, patterns emerged, and eventually, I was left with an extensive list of behavior, replete with justifications, distractions, hostility, and, miraculously, humanity.
Why don’t people return their cars?
People had all kinds of reactions when asked to do the right thing (see Figure 1). there were people who got distractedChallenge the question instead of answering it. Do you work here? Are you the cart police? Do you represent this company? Who are you? Can I see your ID? Do you have any rights? Who do you work for? Who Do You Think You Are? Why don’t you get a real job?
Some responded angrily and attackThey shouted, cursed and jeered, Some people did (or did) threaten to call law enforcement, Others advanced brandishing weapons such as guns, Tasers or knives, “I’ll cut your face off,” warned one man, “Why don’t I fuck your ass?” asked another, “That’s how you get killed,” a third shopper told Cart Narc, Alas, returning the car would generate as much passion as refusal would,
There were many excuses then. In more than half of the encounters I observed, shoppers provided at least one justification for their decision to abandon cart (see Figure 2).
many called for EligibilitySometimes citing an identity that they believed exempted them from common decency. One person said, “I worked at Safeway for many years and people would leave their carts all the time.” Another explained his decision to abandon his cart by saying, “After working in a retail grocery store for 40 years, I’ve earned it.” What exactly did you earn? Your right not to retreat?
were also quoting physical limitations Preventing them from returning carts. “I’m 72 years old. I can’t walk that far,” Explained A man after pushing his cart to the far end of the lot. Another shopper explained his decision to leave his car in the middle of a handicapped parking spot, saying, “I’m handicapped myself.” And one woman, when asked about leaving her car, said, “I feel really, really bad.” Before sitting behind the wheel and driving. To be clear: Disabilities deserve accommodations. But if you can push a full cart to your car, why can’t you push an empty cart back?
others were simple too busy To return their vehicles. “I’m over an hour late to my kid’s birthday party,” revealed one hurried shopper. “We should be somewhere,” another alleged, before spending the next eight minutes arguing with Cart Narc. About how he didn’t have time to return his car. some have been mentioned inconvenience“Those carts don’t even move,” complained one shopper as he tried to dig his cart’s wheels straight into the grass and dirt,
Many people justified their behavior invocation of norms and pointing out Other Those leaving the car. “Everyone else just leaves them there,” said one shopper, leaving her cart with a similar pile of unreturned items. “The culture here is to do that,” insisted another, as if not returning your car is a local tradition. This logic – everyone else does it – matches best with juice boxes and timeouts. If everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you jump?
Other types of excuses are invoked by other people shift responsibility (or blaming) others. Many shoppers pointed to their choice to abandon cart as a form of job stability or creation. “They pay someone to collect them all,” one person explained. others emphasized that returning CART is selfish because, “You’re putting someone out of a job.” It’s true that many shops employ people to collect carts, but the job is to collect them from designated return areas – not to drive them across the area like loose cattle.
In some conversations I saw, people pretended ignoranceLike the woman who was unaware that carts should not be left on the street: “I don’t know where we should put them, I usually stop at Ralph’s,” As if basic decency is wildly store-specific,
My personal favorite justifications were those that invoked habitual good behavior, By saying that they are explaining their choice not to return their vehicle always keep your car away“Ninety-nine percent of the time I put it back,” insisted one buyer after not having his back,
But, amidst the shouting and making excuses, there were also people who, when asked to return their vehicles, returned their vehicles. Some people were not happy with this. “There’s too much going on in the world to pay attention,” grumbled one man, his back turned to the fence. Incredibly, another threatened to break Cart Nark’s arm before returning his cart. Others quietly returned theirs. Some people even accepted their mistake. One shopper said, “I just got cart narc-ed! I’m sorry.” (See Foreign Ministry of a Carriage Dropper, below).
What does behavioral science say?
We can also look to existing research in the social and behavioral sciences for insight into why people don’t return their vehicles.
people respond to incentives, For example, at Aldi, you can’t take a cart without inserting a quarter first. When you’re done, you return the car and get your quarters. According to Aldi, this system saves customers money: by eliminating the need to pay staff to collect stray carts, Aldi can keep their prices low. (This type of deposit system is standard in many European countries.)
But if you search “Aldi shopping carts” on Google, you’ll find countless blog posts, articles, and videos explaining how to get around the quarter system, suggesting there are limits to the incentive.
People respond to cues of hierarchy, Many of the cart abandoners I observed justified their choice by saying, “They pay people to do that.” The implication was that returning a cart would put someone out of a job – or worse, the task of returning the cart was under their control. The grocery store I worked at in high school didn’t bother to encourage people to return their carts. Instead, they reinforced the hierarchy by hiring teenagers like me to drive to people’s cars, not wanting to burden their customers with the task of returning the car. Even in stores where returning carts is expected, people may fail to do so if they feel that the task of returning carts falls on them. Viewing a task as inferior makes it seem more acceptable to ignore it.
people react to social normspsychologists distinguish descriptive criteria (what people do) and prohibition criteria (What people think they should do). When we see abandoned cars in a parking lot, the descriptive norm tells us that it’s OK to leave them. But when we see other people returning their vehicles, it may feel wrong not to do so. Social norms cut both ways: they may condone cart abandonment but also encourage cart return.
Boosting cart returns can be as simple as setting a new benchmark. The insight that people adjust their behavior to conform to their beliefs Other Hotel Signs has conducted numerous “ideal campaigns” to remind guests that most of People are curbing binge drinking by promoting university’s initiative to reuse their towels most of Students should not drink excessive alcohol. In fact, the shopping cart had its own ideal campaign. In 1969, a retired grocer declared February “Return Shopping Cart to Supermarket” month, in an effort to recover stolen shopping carts. Norms can tell us what to do, but not always Why It’s worth doing them.
But people react to meaningWithout a deposit system or standard campaign, the most effective motivator may be to rework the act itself, Like Blockbuster’s “Be Kind, Rewind,” which turned what used to feel like a chore into a small act of kindness and a favor for the next person, Or, inspired by something more serious, the “Don’t let friends drive drunk” campaign, which turned an uncomfortable confrontation into a sign of loyalty,
so, do your thing, return your carNot because the cart matters, but because returning it means other people do too,