Forum menu
It's funny times for sure, but the selfishness of the human still astounds me.
Me and the other half are never any bother to anyone and i would be mortified if someone was including me in a post like this.....with the slackening of 'lockdown'since Monday, guess what, the ubiquitous litter is starting to appear again on the grass verges. It's been all over the news (and pretty much every medium you can think of!) about the mess people are leaving...in fact you have to try bloody hard not to know about the state of parks and beaches after the weekend!!
I've just been out on the bike and there's cartons of fruit juice, plastic sandwich wrappers.... There's a good family a few doors down from us and the parents are out collecting litter which is fantastic, but they shouldnt be doing that in the first place! It really flips me off! It's something i've never done and don't understand why the perpetrators think its acceptable? Christ knows what else they consider to be normal behaviour.
Fast food outlets are opening and there stuff is starting to appear on the floor again.
We're an effin stupid species sometimes....
Wouldn't be the first time I've questioned whether this species actually deserves to survive this pandemic.
Hyper-capitalism by design breeds hyper-individualism into society. I’m all right jack. The previous brake in our guilt-based society was religion which we’ve now shaken off, but failed to replace it with another framework which it seems humans need in order to work. We’re never going to use the shame system that other groups use, so we’ll have to think of another.
I could happily crank up the Panzer!! 🙂
I was in Tokyo in January, a place I've been a few times over the last 15 years or so, you could eat your dinner of the pavements there. In fact I can't recall a single country I've been to where I've seen litter like you do here.
People are mostly horrible.
Similar to avdave2, I work & spend most of my time in Switzerland, the place is spotless.
Last summer my wife & I were sat on the Rhine, having a couple of drinks, as were many others, when a young lad rolled his empty beer can into the river.
At least five people got up from where they were sitting, approached him & told him exactly what they thought of him. He looked rightly embarrassed, apologised & made attempts to fish it out.
It's what children learn from their peers.
As with many of the human problems, it's learnt behaviour but like you, I find it infuriating & can't get my head around why people think its ok to do it.
Mostly McDonald's chucked out the window as they drive off scumbags, on another note others that boil my piss are folk with chipped drives and their 4x4 motors that pick up stones and drop on to the road loads of them. Why not give it a brush from time to time, manicured gardens, new cars and new flash houses but disregard anyone on a road bike
I was in Tokyo in January, a place I’ve been a few times over the last 15 years or so, you could eat your dinner of the pavements there. In fact I can’t recall a single country I’ve been to where I’ve seen litter like you do here.
This. So much this.
My second son was 5 years old when we first took him to Germany. While walking down the road in a German town along the Rhine, we asked him and his older brother what they liked best about our holiday to that point. My 5-year old said, almost without hesitating, 'There's no glass on the ground'.
The question is: Why TF is it so bad here? In all the places on planet earth I have visited or lived, I have never seen anything like this one for litter. It's like an act of collective self-loathing.
____ing idiots, the lot.
It's a British disease sadly. You can always spot where the Brits have been when abroad as they'll leave rubbish everywhere regardless of whether it's a park, beach or beauty spot.
Like Onzadog I've sort of been hopping the virus would weed out the ones who have little regard for their surroundings but sadly we'll have to wait for another pandemic to do that.
Pig ignorant scruffy tramps is all they are, love (hate) to see their houses.
Don't kick me off about McDonalds & all their crap that gets strewn around the countryside, I couldn't give a toss if they never opened again, the country would be a tidier place. Except it wouldn't cos the dirty rags would still chuck stuff.
It all dates from the Thatcher years. All street bins were removed during the IRA bombing campaign and that along with "no such thing as society" and the rest of the selfishness means two generations have grown up discarding rubbish
It's about "sticking it to the man" and "one life, live it" and other such crap
Ultimately it's selfishness, and an immaturity. They don't want to deal with their own mess, someone else can do that.
It all dates from the Thatcher years. All street bins were removed during the IRA bombing campaign and that along with “no such thing as society”
No litter before Thatcher? Really?
Most people aren't deliberately malicious, they just don't think about it. The same way as they just leave their stuff behind in McDonalds, they do the same thing in the park or on the riverbank. No-one's explained otherwise.
Don't under-estimate the ability of the human brain to ignore things. People need to be taught - just like racism or voting Tory.
Drives me mental, I've given people their rubbish back a few times when I've seen them drop it. A bit Victor Meldew I suppose.
Aaaaah, I feel at home in this thread. I always come back from a local ride with my outer pocket stuffed with cans and bottles.
It's really depressing mate, I cannot fathom how people who breathe the same air as me, let alone my fellow countrymen act like this. Sometimes if I see a McDonald's bag on the side of the road I've tried to convince myself that it's accidently fallen out of an open window or blown out off a full bin. But then, no, I grudgingly have to accept that some scruffy bastard has just thrown it out of a moving car window.
I could just as easily get in the mind of Pol Pot, seriously
Anyway that reminds me of 'holiday in cambodia' altogether now 'Pol Pot!'
Isn't it half the problem that people clear up after others?
Lots of posts on the Pentlands Facebook group about people finding litter from others' picnics, bbqs and camping then clearing it up.
If people know someone will clear up after them then that's a reason not to bother themselves.
Littering and dog fouling proper grind my gears.
My wife covered littering in her Environmental Health Masters.
Some random stuff I remember from it:-
‘Commons dilemma’ - the conflict an individual experiences when weighing up the benefits to the individual (in this case easier to discard litter than take it home) versus the benefits to the wider society (place tidy for everyone).
‘Broken Windows Theory’ - when somewhere is already littered, littering rates increase because people just think “funk it it’s a tip anyway”.
‘Nudge theory’ - fining and authoritarian messages to reduce littering
work less well than education and positive encouragement.
Demographic most likely to litter are teenage and twenties males.
Stuff like this needs covering in Primary Schools (if it’s not already?)
Stu
I agree, Switzerland is clean. Even if a house is in need of repair and looking a bit shabby, you can bet the front step is swept. Is it an oppressive place to live though? (I'd rather have social pressure to conform than litter, for the record).
Not just GB with litter. Even been to Greece and seen the municipal bins overflowing? I.e. the ones the residents use, not the tourists. Take it home if it's full. Hardly any recycling on the islands. I remember a trip to Cyprus, driving up into the mountains and seeing the valleys filled with people's shite where they had driven up and tipped their household rubbish directly off the road.
As has been mentioned previously, printing licence plates on drive through wrappers should be a requirement.
Nuke us all from orbit.
It's not just Brits - it's just as bad in the US and Australia.
Japan and S. Korea are amazingly clean and tidy, but Thai people seem to have a similar attitude to litter as some British ... just lob it over the side of a boat or out of a window.
I believe a good proportion is done specifically because they know someone else will reduce themselves to picking it up. These people know they are scum and revel in it. The guy who throws his kebab out of the car window is a “legend” to his peers. His couldn’t GAS attitude is the only thing that makes him relevant.
I started a thread on here about being able to issue an invoice to McDickheads and Costacock for my time and energy I expend picking up and correctly disposing of their rubbish. I know a customer buys it but I see it as the original suppliers problem in that they don't issue enough information/guidance on how to dispose of it.
Monster drinks are another source of annoyance - I'll give a million quid to someone with evidence of an empty monster can in a litter bin. They don't even have the keep Britain tidy/dispose correctly logo on their cans so it's no wonder ****s litter them everywhere
Big and daft - a lot less. removal of the bins taught a generation to just drop rubbish
many other factors as well but this was one for sure
I haven't read the whole thread but I would like to put out a BIG THANK YOU to the Southampton Bike Park users who have been keeping it clear. We have the last remaining litter bin in the sports centre BECAUSE WE USE IT and we don't leave litter lying around like the cricket and football pitches.
There are good people out there and they are us!
His couldn’t GAS attitude is the only thing that makes him relevant.
Pretty sad really don't you think?
Garbage in garbage out.
----
but yeah. dunno. wtf is the matter with people.
Disposable BBQ's piss me off. Utterly chavvy devices which litter beauty spots and cause numerous fires.
There is so much wrong with this country; if I was 20 years younger I would be emigrating.
A shit-hole populated by increasing numbers of chavs.
McDonalds are re-opening drive-thru near me tomorrow; cars will be queueing from both directions, blocking passing traffic, obstructing the cycle lane.
For what? A fix of greasy mechanically reclaimed chicken slurry with all the fries you can throw out of your car window.
Littergeddon - coming to you courtesy of ignorant peasants who would be better off dead.
Councils should ban any further take-aways of any kind.
TJAGAIN........ wtaf???
So the scumbags who left rubbish at Durdle Door the other day did so because Gerry Adams made Maggie Thatcher remove all the bins in Dorset?
I thought that all bins were replaced under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 1999.
I could be wrong. But then again, I haven't "BEEN ON A COURSE" recently.
I’ll hold my hand up here to say that I actively leave litter on the floor at railway stations as there are no bins and the ones on the trains are very often full.
Also regarding fast food, greasey packaging and leaking cups from the ice melting I can’t exactly put that in my pocket, unless I have a plastic bag pre prepared with me, which I don’t as if I was about about planning I wouldn’t be eating fast food.
There is often an attitude that it’s your fault, you bought some fast food, so it’s your problem on what to do with the rubbish from it, so people respond with ‘No don’t make it my problem, I’ll make it yours’.
In the case of railway stations they are all too happy to have shops take my money, but won’t use that money to provide the service of a bin.
I didn’t get why all my local bins in the street were taped up yet I still had to pay the same amount of council tax, hang on you aren’t doing your job, yet I still have to pay.
It’s all the same attitude, everyone is happy to take your money, but you can’t ask for a service.
Actually provide bins/toilets in popular areas, then and only then quadruple the fines as the people littering are consciously being knobs. But not before.
The current attitude is ‘how dare you come to the countryside, it’s covid 19 not a holiday, enjoying yourselves, bastards, we’ll put a stop to that, no bins, no toilets, no car parks **** you, don’t come here, you’re not welcome’ so people respond with ‘**** you too’
‘Nudge theory’ – fining and authoritarian messages to reduce littering
work less well than education and positive encouragement.
they’d disagree with that in Singapore and muckytee, go to Singapore. In the meantime take care of your own litter, or are you too helpless?
The worst littering I've ever seen was in northern (Turkish) Cyprus. People just seemed to lob their shit everywhere and expect the LA to clean it up! Public BBQ areas (all over the place) with billowing smoke (not an exaggeration) and rubbish everywhere. Yet law and order, particularly robbery, theft and burglary is a relatively small issue, nothing like the UK!
Hardly ever saw anyone walking the streets, except in town centres. When walking about out of town and in the mountains, not a soul to be seen apart from goats! People in vehicles constantly stopped to offer a lift, something I've never experienced here or anywhere else TBH.
Muckytee wtaf? 😳😡
The shit everywhere makes a little more sense now you point out that you've paid to drop it...
In the late 80's I had a saturday job at McD's. Everyone did 1 hr of litter picking outside. If you didn't come back with a full bag, they would send you back out. I am not sure if they still operate like this.
So I still feel that part of the responsibility lies with the retailers.
No excuses though.
Hyper-capitalism by design breeds hyper-individualism into society. I’m all right jack. The previous brake in our guilt-based society was religion which we’ve now shaken off, but failed to replace it with another framework which it seems humans need in order to work.
Muckytee - how about thinking one step further and not buying the fast food in the first place, because you know you’ll be unable to dispose of the litter? I’m sure that when you’ve gone hungry a few times, you’ll soon learn to adapt your behaviour and carry a bag to allow you to dispose of your litter when you find a bin, or get home.
Muckytee gets minus one kudos from me for bumbling through life expecting others to lay on facilities to make up for his lack of forward planning. It’s not hard to take care of your crap until it can be responsibly disposed of. Bins everywhere bring their own issues not least who pays, but also increases the expectation that you should be able to dump stuff at any time of your choosing. I know at Gisburn the PMBA have resisted bins as it’s a remote location making refuse collection infrequent and expensive, and if you can get it there you can take it away.* On a busy day if the bins are filled people then think it’s right to pile stuff next to and around it but this can create a worse litter problem. In summary no bin does not equal right to litter.
* as people have taken to leaving their rubbish in the toilets, as they can’t be seen doing it (probably with the 'well they should lay on bins' rational) bags have been placed behind toilet doors. I’m not sure this is progress but resignation…
Seen a recent FB post from one of the Scottish islands. There assumption was that all the roadside rubbish was due to "outsiders". 10 weeks into the lockdown and they're still picking up bag loads of discarded rubbish from the verges.
Was out walking the dogs this morning and emerged from the undergrowth to watch a woman place her bagged dog$hit on the ground and walk-off - she saw me, but it didn't even register to her that she'd done something wrong.
It's only going to get worse with more cafes re-opening for takeaways only. Should be forced to have their company name printed on the boxes so at least the litter can be posted through the appropriate letter box.
I don't agree with MuckyTee littering but I do agree with his point about people making things difficult.
When planning to implement rules you should start by trying to make it easier to comply than disobey, only apply rules that make sense to people and make punishment direct and enforceable wherever possible.
If a bin is in a remote place and gets overfilled then make it bigger. It doesn't need to look like a skip but something that can be emptied once a month instead of overflowing each weekend.
Don't ban McDonalds outlets and then allow Subway or Pret. People need to be able to understand why rules are in place to decide if they want to follow them. Almost no-one sticks to the motorway speed limit because it is an arbitrary number picked half a century ago where as most people drive on the correct side of the road, even when it changes country to country.
I like the idea of number plates printed on drive throughs as people know tyey can be traced. More ideas like that which are very cheap and easy to implement will help. Huffing and puffing that people should be nice and good won't work
My missus asked some young kids why they were throwing rubbish on the floor when there was a bin a few steps away and got '**** off foreigner. Go back to your own country,' in return.
I stopped by work (pub, so still closed,) last week to check everything was secure. 2 massive recycling bins and the same for general waste so of course some scrote has been dumping their household waste on the floor the other side of our external bin store.
People are idiots.
It's the people who walk up to a beauty spot with drinks, food, and a BBQ and then up and leave all the crap on the floor. If they can carry all the stuff full of food and drink, surely they can squash the packaging down and carry it home?
I could almost (not really, but almost) understand dropping something in a carpark where somebody would pick it up but the fact that people walk to a beauty spot, because its beautiful and leave rubbish astounds me.
The kids and I have started taking shopping bags on some of our rides to collect rubbish from one of the spots near us.
That and people who use latex gloves to do their shopping, get to the exit of Tesco and fling them out the window. As much as it annoys me, it also makes me laugh because if they only take them off at the exit to the carpark, they have already touched most of the car interior with the gloves and without.