[Closed] What is the matter with people?

Without a doubt it is getting so much worse, there is clearly a section of society that feels they're so entitled to just do as they like, not picking up your litter - fields and woods here are covered and a lot of us now take bags as we know we'll find it. Fires in woodland when it's tinder dry, motorbikes on footpaths and then give the farmer a load of lip and vandalism of benches, boardwalks etc. The list goes on. And as for leaving litter at rail stations, don't think I've seen any other than small unmanned ones that don't now have clear bags hanging for your litter. Leaving it means someone has to pick it up, get your food waste on them etc. FFS, there's enough cleaning staff around usually at mainline stations, just hand it to one of them.

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.

Exactly this.

We also live in a society which enforces the rules on the ‘little people’ but the entitled people are let off (I’m not basing this purely on Mr Cummings but also on the way that minor impropriety is punished but major impropriety is rewarded and even admired). The current legal system means that in various fields (financial, planning, environmental health) the enforcing authorities go after easy targets (basically honest people without the funds for legal or professional advice) but let more wealthy people and organisations off because of the legal costs involved.

I hate the attitude this engenders but until the rules are applied to all elements of society, why should we expect people to comply?

In the countries which people have already talked about on the whole their citizens have a bigger stake in what happens in their neighbourhood. Where they don’t you see the same attitudes which we’re complaining about here.

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-is-the-matter-with-people/#post-11226517

I can answer that - NO

only apply rules that make sense to people and make punishment direct and enforceable wherever possible.

You'd have thought not leaving your disgusting shit everywhere WOULD make sense to people. It doesn't though. Hey I bought a rail ticket and I bought a coffee and a flapjack, therefore I have paid to chuck it on the floor and have someone else make sure that it doesn't blow away and choke a passing swan or something.... 🤬

I was fuming while listening to Lisa Tarbuck on radio 2 last Saturday evening. She read out an email from a listener who was complaining about the helium balloons floating past their house. After reading this out Lisa says, oh stop it, helium balloons are great fun, let them go, its only the same as a plastic bag getting caught in a tree.
Well Lisa with that sort of attitude its no wonder people think it's ok to let their helium balloons go merrily into the sky. Where do you think they bloody land.
It's littering. I see balloons in fields, hedges, up trees, in moorland, rivers, streams etc, all litter, all dangerous to farmers livestock, wild animals, farming equipment.

Also while I'm on a major rant. The countryside has been discovered by many people who wouldn't normally go there. Most of these people have gone and enjoyed it, however a fair few have just dumped their waste - picnics, dirty nappies, takeaway rubbish, wipes, masks, gloves, disposable bbqs and just left it to fester. I despair.

Hubby and I while out on our tandem witnessed 2 youngsters parked up, in a posh cabriolet (roof down), toss their beer bottles out into a lay by. The lay by is next to fields and moorland containing ground nesting birds and other rare wildlife. I asked them to pick their rubbish up and take it home, (if it wasn't for C19) I would have picked them up and flung them into the back seat). It was lockdown, so they shouldn't have been having their lovers meeting (seen a lot of that going on), drinking and driving and littering. Stupid idiots.

TJ - you do come out with some ridiculous facts sometimes.

Since lockdown, we've had an interesting addition to the littering problem courtesy of the delightful dog-owning fraternity.

Our household recycling bins are in a ginnel behind our houses. It's a public right of way and used by people who use it as a cut-through to walk their dogs in the woods behind.

You can take it as read that these lovely folk already hang dog-shit bags from the trees in the woods, waiting for the dog-shit fairy to come and remove them all, no doubt.

With the bins all taped up, now what they've also started doing is carrying their shit-bags down from the woods and just throwing them in our recycling bins. So I'll take some cardboard out for recycling, open the paper/card bin, and be greeted by a pile of bags of dog shit!

Delightful!

We're presently considering anti-personal mines

What's wrong with people indeed

It is as if some global event, or sequence of global events, has given people permission to do all the bad things they have secretly always wanted to do.

Racism, spitting at people, xenophobia, fly-tipping, ignoring your own lockdown rules, littering, gratuitous economic and social disruption, leaving a lit BBQ in dry woodland, distributing hate on social media,

This is where I cycle a lot, a dirt jump/trails area in the woods. It's generally quite litter free in the 'big gap' areas, but down here is where the easier jumps are and the kids congregate.

Humans are generally doing themselves proud at the moment aren't they.

I need tot try and keep my growing hatred of people in check, it's got the possibility to become a mental issue.

Kids are kids. It's the adults that should know better that are the biggest problem.

I remember cycling along the road as a kid and I threw a drink bottle in the hedge. My mum happened to be driving behind and saw. Was told my dad would be furious and ashamed of me if he had seen. That was enough, not done it since.

Except for when I was a smoker. It just seemed normal and acceptable behaviour to flick cigarette butts anywhere. Didn't register as littering or as doing anything wrong. Typical anti smoker now, can't stand being anywhere near it!

The it’s your rubbish, your responsibility argument, is a bit of a slippery slope, maybe not have domestic bin collection either by the same logic..

The above needs an important addition ‘your rubbish your responsibility to use facilities provided to dispose of it.’

As for me littering at railway stations I have solved the problem by just not buying anything there now, no bin, no business

Reading this thread has been quite cathartic. Sometimes I oddly feel so alone when surrounded by what it feels like is a majority of people being scumbags. I often talk to my wife and explain how I feel there are more bad people in this world than good. She tries to convince me otherwise, but the evidence speaks for itself. But equally, I know the bad stuff gets highlighted way more than the good stuff.

I would very much like to sit down and chat to those who think its acceptable to litter and disrespect the world we live in, to try and get to the bottom of where this mindset comes from. Why do I know to take my litter home and they don't... where did our education or life choices differ?

I live on a new build estate and we have the obligatory 'social housing'. And whilst I wont tar everyone with the same brush, it does appear that 'they' constantly have 3 or 4 times the amount of household waste compared to non social housing homes. yet my recycling bin is overflowing and on the odd occasions they put theirs out, its clearly not to the brim. Again, how is my view on household waste and recycling so different to theirs? did my state school do a better job educating me? Did my parents show me a different path through life? Am I more open to the impact on the world and care more?

I try not to let it get me down as much as it does.....

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’

Non-essential business of providing bins and toilets to beauty spot car parks is non-essential.

Congrats for joining the scum with your train station litter, btw.

I was fuming while listening to Lisa Tarbuck on radio 2 last Saturday evening. She read out an email from a listener who was complaining about the helium balloons floating past their house. After reading this out Lisa says, oh stop it, helium balloons are great fun, let them go, its only the same as a plastic bag getting caught in a tree.
Well Lisa with that sort of attitude its no wonder people think it’s ok to let their helium balloons go merrily into the sky. Where do you think they bloody land.
It’s littering. I see balloons in fields, hedges, up trees, in moorland, rivers, streams etc, all litter, all dangerous to farmers livestock, wild animals, farming equipment.

Oh FFS don't get her name wrong. She'll ****ing 'ave you for it.

I believe her full name is Liza, not lisa, did I mention it's LEEEEEEEEEEEEZA, LIZA LIZA LIZA LIZA LIZA LIZA quick mention of who my Dad is LIZA LIZA LIZA LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZA Tarbuck.

And I knew she was a **** long before she condoned littering on Radio 2.

Again, how is my view on household waste and recycling so different to theirs?

Class. You have some, they don't. Where you got it, doesn't matter.

I'm NOT condoning it, but:

- The councils (round here at least) stopped litter collection during lockdown and still haven't resumed public bin emptying. The reason was supposedly to enable more resource for socially distanced household collections.
- The same is true for dumps/recycling centres, as a result fly tipping has been rife.
- Perhaps infrequent home bin collections is a false economy that discourages people from taking their rubbish home?
- The pictures from Durdle Door are a bit misleading - in the middle of the afternoon the police (in their own words) "evacuated the beach", if that was done with the urgency it suggests (and it was for air ambulance and cg helo so it certainly wasn't a "take your time" job) then hardly surprising if a lot of people abandoned stuff. My views on anyone who thought going there was a good idea anyway, are rather less diplomatic.
- Theres some very mixed messaging around where people can go. In England the whole country is "open" but many of the places people would normally travel to for leisure are pro-actively discouraging visitors, (I get what/why but the consequential effect is not properly thought through - its almost like it needs national leadership): similarly in Scotland a "stay local" message results in far higher population density in some facilities than might be normal with resulting higher waste.
- If you look carefully in the Germanic countries, as well as many of the Scandi countries whilst there is generally a more responsible attitude to waste there are also far more street cleaners etc. My limited experience in Asia suggests its probably the same. I don't think they are leaving as much waste but then the little that is left is quickly cleared away and the fact the environment is pristine discourages others (the well its already a dump so my waste is making no real difference issue).
- People who will queue in cars for 1/2 a mile to get a drive through McDonalds are clearly not wired up right so its hardly surprising if they dump their waste. Personally I'd charge a waste tax on all take away food which is specifically used for waste type projects.
- Oh and by closing pubs (which I think is probably a good idea) you've driven hard core drinkers back to their underage illicit drinking spots in the woods etc. Expecting drunk people to behave rationally is probably a mistake!

There are pretty much no bins in Tokyo, yet no litter. People expect to take it home. It's just a matter of conditioning from an early age. You have to make these things socially repugnant, like drink driving (which was the norm before the 70s). Now it's a source of shame to get prosecuted for it.
Also, the squeezing of council budgets has removed a lot of these everyday social necessities like street cleaning or public toilets. It becomes the norm to take a piss in an alley or carefully fold your chip bag into a railing and society is much the worse for it.

Local pub made a big deal of/about eliminating single use plastic recently. They've just opened for take away... never seen so much plastic. And the reason I can see it? It's being left (by the socially intimate hordes they've attracted) in the communal area over the road next to the bins which aren't being emptied.

When challenged - 'all we can do is tell our customers how to dispose of their waste properly'.

No more £6 pints at the Stew and Oyster for me...

Was going to post something similar the other day op. Passed at least 3 kfc bargain buckets that had just been lobbed out the car window the other day, scattering their contents all over the ground. What kind of person thinks that's acceptable??

On a side note, the albatross I hung in a local park was there bringing joy to the public (possibly) for 2 weeks before it was nicked.

a) Does hanging art from trees count as littering?
b) Who nicks an 8 foot albatross?

☝️reminds me of this which I saw when out for a run a while back:

a) Does hanging art from trees count as littering?
b) Who nicks an 8 foot albatross?

When challenged – ‘all we can do is tell our customers how to dispose of their waste properly’.

Part of it has to do with a sense of powerlessness. The greater the inequality, the less sense of power and civic pride, the more you dump (I lived in the crescents, people would dump in the lifts). Japan and Scandinavia score well on the Gini hence clean streets. You could also see it as fast food outlets externalising their costs, Maccy's and Greggs producing industrialised but edible material from animals' jallops and expecting society to clear up the litter as well as suffer the health consequences. My county is the last not to have a McD's, but I don't know for how long. Do we really need low wages, food to die for and litter everywhere? The (tory) council seem to think we do.

b) Who nicks an 8 foot albatross?

Amateurs.

Where I live it's fibreglass horses that get nicked.

Here's the cops recovering it from the miscreants gaff....

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/jail-reset-stolen-ready-steady-5567925

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

Well, there’s street bins in my town, and all over Bath, don’t know about other towns, or in your part of the world, but blaming events thirty-odd years ago is a bit of a stretch.
There used to be public information broadcasts on telly regularly telling people not to litter, that was around the same time. People are just lazy, there are no bins alongside rivers or in farmers fields, so instead of putting their rubbish back into the bags it came in, it’s just left.
And as for people just shitting where they are, it’s no good blaming the lack of public loos, many places have never, ever had loos, there’s nowhere to put them, and visitors didn’t crap all over the place in the past.
@perchypanther - that’s quite some feat, nicking a street sculpture of that size! He surely must have had help, even snorting several lines wouldn’t help lifting and carrying something like that away. Some of those things are quite valuable, a friend of mine has a Shawn the Sheep statue that was placed outside St Paul’s Cathedral at her hotel/house, cost her several thousand, but when she went to bid for one from a later Shawn/Grommit campaign on behalf of a friend they were going for upwards of £11-12k!

The it’s your rubbish, your responsibility argument, is a bit of a slippery slope, maybe not have domestic bin collection either by the same logic..

Yes, because paying your council tax and bagging up your rubbish fortnightly and leaving in a wheeliebin provided by the council for a pre-arranged collection is the same as buying a coffee at a train station and therefore feeling entitled to leave the waste on the ground...  🤣

Muckytee? Troll, moron or *? With his * you attitude to littering I'm going with ****.

Same story here Binners. But I’d rather the shite was collected in any kind of bin than left dangling at head height at the edge of paths. Not ideal, but could be worse.

WorldClassAccident

Especially when the cinema's are closed
--
Re bins not being there: I first encountered heavy littering when I moved to Edinburgh in the 1970s. Bins were thin on the ground, and I got a lot of stick from the natives for taking my wrappers etc back home with me. The ability to just chuck stuff can get deeply ingrained.

Passed at least 3 kfc bargain buckets that had just been lobbed out the car window the other day, scattering their contents all over the ground. What kind of person thinks that’s acceptable??

More to the point, what kind of person buys a bargain bucket and doesn't eat the contents!? Insanity.

Same story here Binners. But I’d rather the shite was collected in any kind of bin than left dangling at head height at the edge of paths. Not ideal, but could be worse.

To say I'm not a fan of dogs would be an understatement. Actually... it's their owners I don't like. With good reason, living in an area popular with them. If you must own what is essentially a noisy, smelly shit-generating machine then it should be you that's dealing with its output, and certainly not me.

From experience (having shouted at quite a few of them) its Mr and Mrs 50-odd year old, matching Berghaus jackets that seem to think that it's me and my neighbours that should be left to deal with the massive logs left behind by their labrador, hanging in trees, now dumped in our recycling bins, or more often than not, just left outside our houses for us to stand in.

****s!!

If one ever dares to point out to these oiks that they have just thrown their litter down 20cm from a bin, then the torrent of abuse and threatening behaviour is scary. I saw a woman get punched once outside Greggs for pointing out that a child hadn't placed his litter in the bin, but had instead chosen to walk out of the door and just throw it down. I regretted not sticking up for the nice lady.

I live in a nice place and have shouted at people throwing cigarette butts out of open car windows, in the street and down a drain. I think/hope that at least one of them was embarrassed enough to not do it again.

Rats, now if you start telling them about rats, they almost sit up and listen.

Binners - You should trap an angry cat in your bin.

It'll scare the shit out of the dog poo depositor and they're unlikely to see their dog for several hours afterwards.

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.

On a cycle tour of the outer hebrides in the late 1990's I was surprised to find that the locals on some of the islands considered a reasonable way to dispose of a knackered car was to push it into the sea on one of the beautiful beaches.

I can always rely on you for a common sense solution PP. It should have been the obvious solution from the start

I've noticed a lot more litter on and around my local trails recently, strangely it's got worse weeks into the lockdown. I'm planning on going out with my 30l backpack (lined with a bin liner) on a future ride to pick up the stuff that's away from the carparks, bollocks I should have done this today!

I was aware of the phenomenon of people littering where they see litter but never knew that is was called 'broken window theory' it's the only reason I wash my car (not fussed myself unless it's really bad as it's just a tool to do a job) as I'm aware that people tend to respect things more if they see that it is well maintained already.

Doings it as a dirty protest (as they feel powerless at these times) has only just occurred to me. I've heard that people do this at work too often in the toilets (after chatting to cleaners in quite fancy corporate buildings they have told me about excrement being smeared all over the toilet walls and floor. Found in both the male and female loos 😲).

Don't put a cat in a bin! Remember what happened to the last woman that did that?

I'm equally amazed at the problem in the UK. Being from NZ I can't fathom how bystanders don't pipe up when people leave their rubbish behind. It's engrained in NZ from school to " keep NZ green" and it really works. It almost seems acceptable here to just leave your crap behind and someone will take care of it. If you carry it there you can carry it back!

bgascoyne - see my post above.
If you dare to confront the litter lout, you get a torrent of abuse and/or threatening behaviour. I'm small and old and they wouldn't care one jot about punching me.

We are taught in schools and myself by my family, it was drummed into us to take care of our environment and not drop litter. But, like a lot of things it's not cool or for a teenager (in front of all their mates) to be seen doing the right thing.

In the last decade or so its been cool to 'break the rules, be an individual, break the mold' etc. Atm this is imo part of the problem.

I live by a school and often saw the parents dropping the litter in front of their children, what a bad example that is. Because I believe the schools have enough on their plate, this kind of learning needs to come from a parent or family member.

In the last decade or so its been cool to ‘break the rules, be an individual, break the mold’ etc. Atm this is imo part of the problem.

Think that's been going on for more than a decade.

s/a Adam Curtis Century of The Self.

**** sake

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/our-precious-nature-reserves-are-not-the-place-to-hold-a-barbecue-228273/

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Jnr has finally taken to his balance bike during lockdown and I took him to some local woods for his first off road ride last week (poacher woods in winstanley, Wigan) the local kids have been busy building an impressive jump line but have also installed bins and signage with rules such as wear a helmet and don’t drop litter, the bins where half full with hardly any litter on the floor.
A collective of kids all working together and respecting the rules.
It warmed my heart to see this 🙂.

Unfortunately I will be going back to work soon. I litterpick and remove flytip as part of my job role for a large housing association in a neighbouring town and the attitude to littering is totally different, confrontations with the knuckledraggers responsible are common and I’m never short of work.

I HATE litter.

the longer I spend ouside the UK the more I realise it's a very British thing to sh!t on your own doorstep almost with pride. When I moved back to UK from Australia it was the first thing I noticed driving back from the airport, just endless litter along the roadside. Now I've been in europe for a while it just seems even more clearly a UK thing. The dog mess in bags in trees or on fences is a defining British thing to me.

I think in general Brits have this self entitled attitude that someone else will do everything for them, like when it snows and everyone complains the council haven't cleared their pavement or street yet, people expect someone to scurry along picking up their litter and dog mess.

There is so much wrong with this country; if I was 20 years younger I would be emigrating.

do it! There is still time! I can't imagine moving back now although I do miss the Scottish hills. I will warn you the longer you spend away from the UK the more you realise what a dirty, decaying, squabbling, in fighting backward looking little island it is though.

@Bigjim - that is a very accurate description.

I don't know why i still live in this country sometimes....I remember 20 years ago i'd done the back pack thing around India, Thailand & Vietnam (cliched i know, but there we are!) for 13 months. I was surprising my parents by just rocking up on their doorstep...so i got the train from Manchester Airport to Piccadilly Station and then the bus home. I was literally horrified by how dirty things were and (with the greatest of respect) the underclass that was present. I'd come from what one would class as third world countries at the time, but they were still proud of what they had, were friendly and would give you their last. People seem a lot more aggressive, expectant, entitled and arrogant for some reason.

I know taht there are loads of good people who do good things, but for some reason every time i go out i just see peoples behaviour which is way of whack to mine! I'm glad it's not just me and that plenty on here see it too!

...a dirty, decaying, squabbling, in fighting backward looking little island it is though.

Sums up my opinion of the country perfectly! It has definitely got worse since the Brexit vote and nastiness, selfishness and verbal violence are being actively fanned by the current administration. Circumstances permitting I would be out of here like a shot and can honestly say that there is very little that I would miss.