I've been on a few litter-picking runs and rides with my teenage boys - hopefully that will instil a sense of responsibility that will stay with them. That and the obvious disgust I show when we see some.
It's particularly disappointing when you know it's mountain bikers. There's a great local spot where Josh Bryceland and the 50:1 lot hang out quite a bit that has attracted a wider teenage biking audience who now think it's ok to have fires and leave all their rubbish behind. If one thing is going to close down the spot - it's that!
I've spoken to a few, and I think they kind of get it - it's just a bit of peer pressure that seems to tip them the wrong way.
Same with digging. It's got a bit out of control now and the amount of land left undug for the bluebells to flourish is getting smaller and smaller. All the non-biking visitors notice this and it saddens them - it just takes a few small concessions to keep everyone happy 🙁
ebikegum, you've been lucky i’d say. i asked a couple of young lads to pick up their litter recently and they spent the next 10 minutes or so threatening to kill my dogs and rape my girlfriend. Real charmers.
what really puzzles me is that a lot of the littering round me is done by residents, which seems a bit like shitting in your own bed before getting in to it.
i think there needs to be a combo of lots of measures - civic responsibility and awareness taught in schools, more public bins, greater effort from local and central government to get the message out there, and absolutely massive fines for littering that are actually enforced - charged per item dropped, with the threat of a criminal record for reoffending
this, of course, applies to anybody that does not pick up after their dog as well. There’s a special place in hell for them
I don't just blame the youth nor do I condone anyone who deliberately litters. However I do think that the young people in Britain have a hard time of feeling part of a community when their community is actively voting and behaving in a way that will create a problem that the young people will have to deal with yet they won't be able to even move out of their parents house until they're into their thirties.
Each future generation will be worse off but will have less and less opportunities that their parents and grandparents.
And this article was before Covid-19.
it's no excuse to litter and cause a mess
two-thirds-millennials-believe-generation-will-worse-parents
They key word in that is "believe". Some things are worse, some are better. I'm not going to divert this thread by going into detail, everybody has to deal with the problems of the age as they meet them, blaming history isn't the way forward, nor is littering as a protest.
@didnthurt that article doesn't say millennials will be worse off though, it says millennials BELIEVE they'll be worse off. Of course they're going to say that, they're children, all they do is moan about how hard life is whilst having everything provided for them 😂
but in all seriousness,
you have that completely backwards. Happy to see some proof of that though, if I'm wrong.Each future generation will be worse off but will have less and less opportunities that their parents and grandparents.
So let's look at reasons to why people do not feel like it's not their fault for treating their environment like shit and how we can help change this.
- The news is all negative so people don't think that their little bit of extra pollution won't make any difference. Education is the answer but not from the regular sources like school or work this needs to come from celebrities and people who have shed loads of followers on social media. Some folk only seem to listen to these (like someone above mentioned Joe Rogan, I know it was in jest but it could work).
- Someone else will deal with it. They think like this because this is actively what does happen because, like the beach litter pick in a previous reply. Make people who are convicted of all petty and minor crimes have to do community service else face a fine of four figures or jail.
- People are lazy. Or people are very efficient at exploiting any short cut that will save them from unnecessary effort. Offer more bins, not just general waste either, they need to be proper colour coded recycling bins with big signs. Also make retailers and suppliers of foods have to make their packaging as minimalist and recyclable as possible.
- People have no civic pride. From the state of lots of people I see out and about they also don't have any personal pride so expecting them to respect their environment is probably 'pie in the sky' thinking. I think that banning or controlling certain fast foods and having free sports facilities would help get people to at least take some control back in their lives and maybe some pride? Maybe encourage more local events like food markets and concerts etc so people can come together more often helping them feel part of their communities.
I know all the above is wishful thinking but we need to make changes to peoples psychology and behaviour which will take time, maybe a generation or two.
I used to go up there before anyone knew about it and it was an amazing spot, un/fortunately there was a big campaign last year to save it from being turned back into a quarry and this gave away the location to hoardes of chavs from miles around thus ruining anyway.
Elf'n'Safety?
When I was at school many years ago we were sent out to clean up any litter that had been dropped at playtime as group punichment. No litter = no extra work.
Fifty years later and the school at which I have helped insists that it's too dangerous for kids to pick litter, so they drop it in volume without regard for consequences. Littering is a habit
This will need firstly the will at government level and secondly a generation to fix.
Going after McD and their analogues is not the answer, it is about making dropping and leaving litter socially unacceptable. Nice idea to use qr codes to make it easy to find and fine offenders and that can be part of the process but if individuals can't be educated / persuaded to buy in then it's still a losing battle.
Having said that I am prepared to volunteer to pick up spent ammo for the litter dropper snipers.
Croyde beach Monday morning. Half buried cans and a wine bottle in the remains of a fire. Grade A bellend behaviour. There's bins on all of the approaches to the beach. No reason at all to leave crap behind. It drives me mad that people go there for the beauty of the place but can't leave it beautiful for others.
Going after McD and their analogues is not the answer, it is about making dropping and leaving litter socially unacceptable.
All we need is a couple of decades of properly motivated tabloidism and BBC Question Time repeatedly pressing the message that litter is left by lefties in order to attract immigrants to our Shining Shores.
On a more positive note, I took the kids to the beach in Morecambe yesterday and it was busy but the beach was spotless, even towards the end of the day.