Correct me if I am wrong but don't the flight attendants ask if you have trash at least two or three times per flight? Then why do people constantly stuff all manner of germ-filled yuckiness in the seat back pockets of airplanes? Just give it to the flight attendant! Better yet throw it away in the airport. A brief stint on the cleaning crew of a major airline left me with one revelation. Airplanes are not clean! I mean not even in the loosest interpretation of the word clean.
Domestic flights have a pretty tight turnaround which leaves the cleaning crew with little or no time to clean. A typical cleaning crew can be two or three people. Two or three people to clean 295 seats in about 15 minutes! Might I add that in this 15 minutes the cleaners have to contend with slow-moving deplaning passengers, flight crew getting in the way, and equipment malfunctions
One quick turnaround I helped clean was so quick we didn't even have time to clean the lavatory. The bottom line is the airline is most concerned with the aircraft maintaining on-time departures so cleaning is secondary to a plane being on time.
The next time you are onboard a plane and you feel the uncontrollable urge to lay your food on the seat back tray…. Don't! I shiver to think of the number of germs a toddler consumes by doing that very thing.
Big ups to all the airplane cleaning crews all over the world who clean hot A$$ airplanes all day for $9.00 an hour. People, I implore you please give your trash to the flight attendants when they request it. The less time a cleaning crew spends digging trash from the seat back pockets equals more time to dedicate to cleaning the lavatories.