Helen is at the park with her dogs and T.D., when the dogs chase after a tabby cat. Unfortunately, Martha steps on a broken bottle, hurting her paw. They take Martha to the vet, and Alice meets them in the waiting room. Helen and T.D. explain what happened, then the vet returns Martha with her left front paw bandaged.
That night, Helen puts a sock on Martha's paw to stop her from chewing on it, while Alice and T.D. visit. Alice is very angry at whoever dropped the bottle for littering. She says that the littering must stop, and T.D. tries to think of a plan to stop it, but frustrates Alice by throwing his used papers on the floor. Alice phones up Mrs. Boxwood and tells her about the situation, T.D. cleans up the paper, and the kids leave.
The next day, Ronald tells Alice to play baseball with him, but she doesn't want to since she's still angry about Martha's injury. He eventually realises that this is important and decides to help the kids in their attempts to stop littering. Meanwhile, Martha is frustrated that she can't scratch her itchy paw.
Despite Alice trying to convince him not to, Ronald decides to help the kids, and they brainstorm ideas in the Lorraines' living room. Helen suggests cleaning up the litter, but Ronald thinks that should be the responsibility of whoever littered in the first place. He then annoys the kids by having them be quiet so he can think and playing his guitar while singing "Polly Wolly Doodle", so they go to Helen's room with Martha while Skits goes to the park and finds the tabby cat.
Alice suggests making signs telling people to recycle, Martha uses Daniel's shoe polisher to scratch her paw, and T.D. (who lent it to her) is wearing a sock on his hand for solidarity. While Skits chases the tabby cat up a tree, T.D. draws a comic of a monster made of everyone's combined litter, named GLOG (Giant Landslide of Garbage), who eats trash, then non-trash, and then tries to eat the people. Ronald walks in and suspects T.D. of being the litterer since he knows so much about litter. Then, Skits enters and says that he found out who dropped the bottle — according to the cat, someone broke glass bottles to practice pitching, and it's revealed that Ronald was the one, so he cleans it up.
This episode provides examples of
- Afraid of Blood: Discussed. Helen claims that T.D. passed out upon seeing Martha bleeding.
- Agony of the Feet: Martha cuts her paw on a broken bottle.
- Animal Jingoism: Downplayed. Martha and Skits chase a cat, but they seem to be happy while doing so, suggesting that they only see it as a game. She spends the rest of the episode angry at the cat, but it's because of the injury, not because it's a cat.
- Bittersweet Ending: Martha's paw may not have healed yet, but the bottles have been cleaned up.
- Blatant Lies: T.D. claims he ripped his sleeve off to bandage Martha's injured paw, but he's clearly wearing it and neither sleeve is ripped off.
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Ronald covers Nelson's ears when Alice asks Ronald how he'd feel if Nelson got some glass in his paw.
- Damsel in Distress: In T.D.'s comic, one woman is being chased by a man-eating garbage monster.
- Death Glare: Everyone else glares at Ronald when they suspect him of being the litterer.
- Distressed Dude: T.D. draws two men running from the hungry garbage monster.
- Empathic Environment: It thunders when Alice gets angry.
- Faint in Shock: Discussed. According to Helen, T.D. passed out when he saw Martha bleed.
- Flashback:
- Zigzagged. We see Helen's and T.D.'s version of what happened when Martha injured herself, but it's unknown how much of it is true. T.D. claims he ripped off his sleeve to bandage Martha, but this clearly didn't happen as his shirt is intact. Helen claims he passed out, though she might have been exaggerating.
- When Skits explains what the cat said about how the bottle broke, the events are seen.
- From Dress to Dressing: Discussed when T.D. claims he ripped off his sleeve to bandage Martha's paw, though this clearly didn't happen as his shirt is whole.
- Fun with Acronyms: The monster from T.D.'s comic is called GLOG, which stands of Giant Landslide Of Garbage.
- Gory Discretion Shot: It cuts away as Martha steps on the bottle.
- Green Aesop: Martha cuts her paw on a broken bottle, leading to a lesson about how it's important not to litter.
- Hypocritical Humor: T.D. tries to come up with a plan to stop people from littering... but instead of throwing his used papers away, he throws them on the floor.
- Injured Limb Episode: The episode focuses on Helen and her friends dealing with Martha having injured her paw.
- Irony: Ronald is determined to find out who broke the bottles, forgetting that it was him.
- Jerk Jock: Ronald is revealed to play baseball in this episode.
- Ladies and Germs: T.D. presents his comic to Helen, Alice, and Martha by saying, "Ladies and... ladies" because they're all female.
- No Ending: In-Universe, T.D. just ends his comic on three people running from GLOG, who wants to eat them, a question mark, and "How will it all end?".
- Not-So-Innocent Whistle: T.D. whistles to try to cover up the fact that he lent Martha Daniel's shoe polisher.
- Nursery Rhyme: Ronald sings "Polly Wolly Doodle" while thinking.
- Oh, Crap!: Helen nervously exclaims, "That's Martha!" when she hears said dog howling in pain.
- Ow, My Body Part!: In T.D.'s version of what happened to Martha, she yells, "Oh, my paw!".
- Pet the Dog: Despite being a Big Brother Bully, Ronald Boxwood decides to help the kids with their anti-littering project.
- Pun-Based Title: The title is a pun on "Cause and Effect".
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: When Alice is ranting about littering, she says, "This! Littering! Must! Stop!".
- Running Gag: Martha keeps trying to scratch her paw, at one point using Danny's shoe polisher.
- The Scapegoat: Martha blames the tabby cat for her injured paw, since she and Skits were chasing it when the injury happened.
- Shared Family Quirks: This episode reveals that the Boxwood siblings are both passionate about the environment and they both play sports.
- Space Whale Aesop: In-Universe. T.D. writes a comic whose moral is "Don't litter, or else your and everyone's litter will turn into a monster that will initially eat your trash, but then will start eating objects that aren't trash, and eventually it'll try to eat you as well."
- Uncertain Doom: In-Universe — T.D. ends his comic with it ambiguous as to whether the two men and one woman were eaten by GLOG or not.
