Internet Enraged by Mess 'Literally Trashy' Family Left at Food Court Table

The internet is furious over a photo of a food court mess allegedly left by a large family in Saudi Arabia.

The image captured the revolting residue of a Kentucky Fried Chicken meal spread across three tables that were pushed together in the Al Othaim Mall food court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The table surfaces were hardly visible under plastic and paper containers, packets and soda bottles mixed with half-eaten remnants from the fast-food chain. Trash had also fallen to the floor, where a spilled puddle of soda was left untouched by the slightest effort to clean.

This photo was shared by Xshpeare, who gave only his first name to Newsweek, on Reddit's "Trashy" forum, amassing 52,000 votes since Monday. The user also posted it on the forum "Mildly Infuriating," where it gained a further 11,000 votes.

Xshpeare said the mess was left behind by a family of about eight to 10 people.

"I was shocked when I saw how dirty they left it, it was so dirty that three workers had to clean it instead of the usual one," he told Newsweek. "I even took a picture because I've never seen a mess that bad in a food court."

According to Saudi-Expatriates, an information website for foreigners living in the country, those who leave litter on the street or spit in public are subject to fines of 500 Saudi Riyals (approximately $133 USD) for a first violation and double that amount for a repeated offense.

However, since this particular mess was left in a food court, the offenders likely walked away without a problem.

"Literally trashy," said a disgusted comment below the Reddit post.

"I feel bad for the poor workers who have to deal with entitled people like this every day," another viewer added. "It's not that hard to throw your garbage away."

A third person pointed out that the family did not have to look far for a place to deposit their debris.

"There's a godd**n bin less than 10 feet away. The laziness of some people astounds me," they wrote.

Another scathing comment observed, "At least they left a bun on the floor to help soak up the soda that they dumped."

According to a Statistic Brain analysis in 2013, the average fast-food restaurant generates 200,000 pounds of food waste per year. Multiplied by the 160,000 fast-food restaurants in the United States, as calculated by the Pew Research Center, that comes to approximately 32 billion pounds of food waste in U.S. fast-food restaurants alone.

Meanwhile, a large majority of that food could have been donated to shelters and soup kitchens. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 38.3 million Americans lived in food-insecure households in 2020.