To ask if anyone will admit to littering?

Pigeon droppings near an air filtration unit brought in the airborne infection.

I’ve noticed the last month how bad it is in my area. Cans , wrappers, cups , food waste etc everywhere . My ds (teen) came home the other day got a bin bag and went and picked up a whole bags worth of rubbish from the pavements by our home. There aren’t enough bins in the area I think I’m going to have to try to do it occasionally too as we keep getting so much rubbish even blowing into our garden.

It is the easiest thing in the world to put litter in a bin or take it home and makes a massive difference to all of us. I never litter, it was absolutely drummed into me not to.

I think some people do it on purpose because it's a strike back against authority/rules. I once stood next to a woman who tore off her fast food packaging and just left it on the floor at Victoria station. I said "I think you've dropped something", which I thought was the least confrontational way of shaming her enough to put her rubbish in the bin and she looked at me like she was going to punch me. I didn't pursue that conversation any further...

It's even more sad that it's not just anti-social/violent types or teenagers if a Mumsnet poster admits to it 🙄

How did the infection spread to humans?

I really cannot understand people who litter and have no respect for the environment or others around them, it’s such a selfish action.

Recently I was behind a car where a passenger was blowing his nose and flinging the tissues out of the car, I was enraged.

Seeing the amount of trash by the side of the road and on the hedgerows when they are cut back makes me think we are a country of people who just don’t care.

I’d quite like to catch the people who litter and set them to work clearing the detritus that they and their fellow scum bags leave around.

Never. It's just awful, and shows complete disregard for the people who live around you. It's a unbelievably selfish thing to do. Once when my DD was about 3, we were at the park and I watched as a group of 4 teenage girls on the swings walked away from their cans and crisp packets. I asked if they were planning to pick up their rubbish. They were embarrassed but carried on walking off. My tiny DD and I started picking it all up and putting it into the Sainsbury's carrier bag they'd left blowing around. To their credit, two of them came back and apologised and took over. I hope that allow them thought about this when they got home, and felt ashamed, but maybe that's naive on my part....

Never. It's just awful, and shows complete disregard for the people who live around you. It's a unbelievably selfish thing to do. Once when my DD was about 3, we were at the park and I watched as a group of 4 teenage girls on the swings walked away from their cans and crisp packets. I asked if they were planning to pick up their rubbish. They were embarrassed but carried on walking off. My tiny DD and I started picking it all up and putting it into the Sainsbury's carrier bag they'd left blowing around. To their credit, two of them came back and apologised and took over. I hope that allow them thought about this when they got home, and felt ashamed, but maybe that's naive on my part....

If it doesn't grow in nature then don't chuck it in nature. It's such an easy rule.

Nope. Never. In fact we do the opposite and pick litter up on our dog walks. We live in a rural spot which is popular with tourists who love to come on their "countryside walks" and leave their Costa / Starbucks cups on the canal and riverside paths. Also poo bags which the owners have kindly picked their dogs poo up in but then just left the full bag?!

I remember once around, fifty years ago, my mum took our neighbours' children, my brother and me for a picnic in our local woods. One of the neighbours' kids dropped a crisp packet (or something) on the ground. My mum immediately told her, "Pick that up; we don't drop litter!". Kid looked at Mum like she'd grown two heads. She clearly thought that dropping your rubbish on the ground was a perfectly normal thing to do. Sadly such ignorance has always been with us.

That’s just gross though. Pigeons are as bad as rats when it comes to spreading disease. Two people died recently in a hospital in Glasgow from infection from pigeons.

All kinds of litter can kill birds and animals. Choking on plastic when they try to eat leftover food. Eating things that are toxic to them — or carrying these home to feed their young. Getting their head stuck when they’ve pushed their nose into a container. Getting tangled in netting. And many other death traps.

So many slow and painful deaths, in mortal fear. Caused by lazy antisocial humans, who don’t give it s moment’s thought.

"It's hard to describe the disregard it shows for where people - probably complete strangers - live."

Exactly this, @SerendipityJane

So hard for me to articulate but it's this really fundamental negligence. It's appalling. I still remember seeing a lad drop litter many years ago - he was only a couple of metres away from a bin, he had a really weird look on his face - like he wanted to piss people off.

Grapes and raisins can be fatal to dogs so please don't scatter them in public for the birds!!!!

i used to throw cigarette butts on the floor 😭
i haven’t smoked for 10 years now but I still feel guilty about it when I think back. There were occasional cigarette bins and when I saw them I’d use them but if not it went on the ground.
I was furious the other day when I saw a man driving down my road throw an empty can out of his car window - he had kids in the back ffs, what a lesson to teach them. I picked it up where it landed and disposed of it in recycling.
Does this make me a hypocrite because I have littered in the past? Probably.

If I have rubbish it's mine and I either find a bin to put it in or take it home.

I was walking my dog a few years ago and came across the discarded remains of, what I assume, was someone's picnic. Among the rubbish were several small wooden skewers with small bits of meat adhering to them.

I spent a good few minutes picking them all up and wrapping them in some of the dog poo bags I had with me. There was no public bins available so I ended up taking them home and putting them in my bin.

Do people not realise, when they discard things like that, that if a bird or animal eats a bit of wood with pointed ends the poor thing will likely end up suffering a slow painful death, or do they just not care?

I'm guessing if you're happy to just throw your crap all over the place you don't tend to give a great deal of thought to the impact it might have on others.

Absolutely never ever. It was drummed into me as a child in the 80s that if you can't find a bin, you bring your rubbish home. Even as a teenager in the 90s when we were drinking cans of beer in the park we still always tidied up after ourselves, it's not bloody difficult.

I reserve a very special kind of hatred for people who litter.

Birds would use it for a house…🤦🏻‍♀️

I’m a litter picker and cannot believe the shit people drop and where they drop it. Plastic bottles and old clothes in a forest stream. Why? Fly tipping makes me murderous… It’s mindless and just so selfish.

I would love there to be a change in the law to impose massive financial sanctions on people who litter and fly tip.

But you managed to carry the boxes full of pizza to the park.

I am astonished at the excuses ppl make for their poor choices.

Take your rubbish with you please.

People go to beautiful places to have picnics and then leave rubbish-spoiling it for the next person.

You are the problem.

We spent a week of the summer in a UK seaside town, throughout the day there would be tons of announcements about litter, lots of bins about, but the number of people who would take 20 mins carefully folding their beach tent, rinsing their sandals etc. and then just walk away from a pile of plastic bottles and take away containers was staggering. In the evening when most of the beach goers had left, a group of volunteers was combing the beach with bin bags,very day. Very sad.

I think six months is far too optimistic. I would guess it would take between one and five years for cardboard pizza boxes to fully degrade into the soil, depending on their location and the weather.