Who taught their offspring it’s ok to litter?

I used to live on the South Downs and people would throw all their rubbish out onto the downs trails and the roadside ruining the park for everyone. Who the hell does that? Id have to go out daily and pick up peoples shit.

Parents do everything right - I work in a secondary school and there is a real herd mentality around litter and mess.

Parents are mortified when you mention it but it only takes a few to do it for others to follow. Even the ‘nice’ kids need repeated reminders at the end of break!

Re cigarette butts, I bought myself one of these;
https://keepbritaintidy.butt-box.com/
I know the people who throw them down won't bother, but for any smoker with a conscience, they are really good!

We used to live on a country lane & I went out litter picking every week. People (tourists or locals, no idea) would just throw it out of their car windows.

I'm 45 years old and I am one of the YOUNGER litter pickers. Say the average age is 62.

Obviously there could be areas where more younger litter pickers are doing it.

Yes it's insane, I cannot fathom why someone would throw litter on the ground. So sad 😞

I do a litter pick every morning round my place of work because loads of people hang out there after school/work. Among this morning's delights was a used sanitary towel

Dirty fuckers.

I don’t think it’s always people. When the wind blows around the town centre it blows all the rubbish out.

The seagulls sit on the bins throwing stuff out.

I think these people can’t even cope with one crisp packet or empty can being in the car til they get home . I know on the roads around me there are so many cans and coffee cups . That’s what most of the litter is along the country roads and it’s not walkers doing it

Whenever there’s a footie/rugby match in our park the crap the parents leave behind! Most people I see litter are teenage and above. Even if never taught not to litter they have brains don’t they?

We live 13 miles from the nearest McDonald's yet our local long distance bus stop always has their rubbish strewn around.

I remember my DS singing a little song he'd been taught at Primary School "Don't drop litter, put it in the bin"...... He's 29 now. All the local children go to /went to the same school and yet the footpath through our estate is littered with cans and sweet wrappers clearly dropped by the local children on their way to/from school, the bus stop or the park. I can't help thinking that maybe they don't teach that song anymore.

What is with the oddly high percentage of people who don't finish their drinks? I'm forever picking half drunk cans off my wall/out of my front garden

DS then about 10 was horrified that I told his friend to pick up his McDonald's cup when he was in my care. I said, "If he wants to spend time with us, he abides by my rules."

The culture has changed, people are lazier, others feel they can’t control it or sort the issue alone. When you have members of society dumping household waste into the street, you’ve little chance of the younger generation not dropping paper.
There are some who care thankfully, youth groups that clear the beach to protect the wildlife but they’re getting rare.

I think a lot of it is just people assuming someone else will do it, especially in places where there are, even loosely speaking, staff there - e.g. park rangers or lifeguards at beaches.

A vague acquaintance of mine is a litterer, mainly of things that people don't think "count" like cigarette butts and chewing gum. He once complained in my heating about going somewhere that was "an absolute shit hole" - and full of fag ends, gum etc. He didn't see the irony even when several people pointed it out to him.

None of my kids litter (that I know of) - once, years ago, my DD2 held a cup out of the car window and said, "I'm going to throw it out." I said "what?!" and stopped the car, and she looked very sheepish and said "I was joking!" I do believe she was actually joking, but I think they all gathered from my reaction that that was not a funny joke and none of them has ever littered before or since!

A few months ago my friend was returning to the car with DP which was parked on the road. She noticed the driver in the car parked behind theirs was eating a portion of chips. Noticed that he was gathering up the papers and saw the window about a third down

She had the sixth sense of him chucking the tray and papers through the window. She jumped to by the window as he was about to throw out the chips packaging. She pushed the chips back into his car. She didn’t look back and jumped into the car and DP drove up

The worst incident I saw was a few years ago on a gorgeous big sandy beach, school summer holidays, lovely sunny day.

A big family, three generations, with kids 0-10, brought down a picnic and then just got up and walked away, leaving everything - food wrappers, glass and plastic bottles, dirty nappies, everything! People told them to clean up after themselves and they shrugged and said the tide was coming in and would clean the beach 😡

We picked everything up and put it in our kayak to stop it floating away, and thankfully the RNLI lifeguards allowed us to put it in the back of their truck because it was a long walk off the beach.

I’m still 😮 at their brazenness. This was a British family btw. On a British beach.

I am in Austria at the moment and it is soooo clean and tidy, they really take pride in their country. Even the litter bins are not overflowing as in the UK. People generally take their rubbish home with them and recycle. It's a pleasure to see and makes you realise how grubby and dirty the UK is with litter everywhere.

You would think that 'individuals' wouldn't walk around up to their ankles in litter either though.

Totally agree about van drivers and taxi drivers too.

I'm part of a litter picking group and we can tell when the school holidays are on by the litter dropped. During term time all the local routes to school are scattered with sweet wrappers, crisp packets, cans and plastic bottles. During the holidays the same routes are almost litter free. The school litter has got so much worse lately that I wonder if it's some kind of trend that some kids have taken on.

I don’t suppose anyone on here is going to admit to being a thoroughly anti-social chav - since that is the sort of person who drops litter and teaches their children by example that it’s fine to do so.

And I make no apologies for using the C-word.

Ah, but they can drive away from the crap in their immaculate, liiter free cars and leave it for some other sap to deal with. Sorted! 👍

People litter in our garden. They chuck empty coffee cups, cans and bottles over the fence as they walk past. However this morning I've found 6 of those cardboard air fresheners that you hang from your rear view mirror. Which means people who park along my fence are doing the littering. The only people who park there are 3 of my neighbours.

That's pathetic. Just how much litter would you be taking home that you can't cope with it?

For goodness sake stop littering and teach your children to have some respect for their surroundings too

Boo hoo. Ours is emptied every three weeks. We still manage not to leave our crap on the ground when we're out and about.

Most of it seems to be people throwing stuff out of cars . They just can’t be bothered keeping it in the car until they get home . It’s disgusting and lazy and slobby and ruins the look of the countryside .