Who taught their offspring it’s ok to litter?

Oh yes, me I guess. I don’t really think about it, and haven’t spoken to my children about it. I don’t bring litter home because we struggle MASSIVELY with the black bin only being emptied fortnightly, quite often I have to leave a black bag by the public bin down the road too.

I’m french so interesting to hear you think we’re all the same! 🇫🇷

A family moved in across the road from us and their two children would come out into their front garden with sweets or ice cream and throw the wrappers on the floor. I was walking past one day when they threw ice lolly wrappers into the footpath and I told them to pick them up. They looked shocked but they did. From then on I got daggers from their mum. The same mum who put leaflets through everyone's door in the road about a litter pick event at a local beauty spot. Some people's minds are unfathomable.

We don't have a huge litter problem locally, but staying with my DSis in a Midlands town where we walk our dogs around a pocket-sized park. Most dry evenings it's full of drinking schools of men who live in HMOs. They leave litter around every bench. Perhaps every bench needs a bin at each end?

There's nothing new about littering, sadly. My mum once took a neighbour's DDs, my DB and me out for a walk in the woods with a picnic. I would have been about 6 or 7, my DB 9 or 10, neighbours's DD similar in age. This was around 50 years ago. One of neighbour's DDs dropped a wrapper on the ground, quite deliberately. My mum had to say, "Pick that back up; we don't drop litter!"
She got looked at like she had two heads. Littering was obviously normal to her.

DH and I were watching an episode of "Scene" on the BBC Archive YT channel the other day, from 1974, again, litter and graffiti everywhere. It's a depressingly old problem.

We went to the playground this morning and it was full of takeaway rubbish from the cafe nextdoor. There are loads of bins and I can't believe people can't be bothered to clear up after themselves. Ditto their children. I ended up picking it all up and putting it in the bin as I hate seeing my child playing surrounded by rubbish. I've done this a few times. Why don't people care about where they live or looking after it? It makes me so mad.

Not only that but you can take your litter home with you and recycle it. I often do that. All you need is a bag to put it in.

I was at a beach festival in Southern France last week on a gorgeous sandy beach encircled by tne Med and a wild lagoon. I was standing by sign in French, English and Spanish that explained cigarette butts should not be dropped on the beach due to fire risk and pollution it causes and there was a sand bin next to it for that purpose. I watched loads of people stand there smoking and simply drop their fag ends on the sand.

It was very dispiriting.

Same mentality as the arseholes who let their dog shite in the middle of the pavement right in front of the school gates and then walk away and leave it for 250 kids to walk through 😑

I hate it here.

Until we get on top of cigarette litter we won't crack "big" litter.

I've been litter picking for eight years and cigarette litter is by far away the worst. And yes, I do call people out for doing it "excuse me, your cigarette litter just missed the bin!" . Sometimes they pick it up sometimes they snort at me and I scoop it up in a tissue and call them a lazy knob. (I can run quite fast and always wear trainers just in case).

I will cheerfully admit I’d be happy that anyone who drops litter on purpose just drops dead on the spot. The world would be a better place. Because those are the shit people. ☺️
Am also a volunteer litter picker. it can’t be compared to the 70s and 80s because people then didn’t have so much junk food/vapes/whips/ takeaway drinks to cause the litter.
I work near an airport and the road is clogged with cab drivers who keep their cars immaculate and just drop their shit out of the windows. Bottles of piss too.

It baffles me too. My children would never litter, they just wouldn’t. It’s absolutely grim.

My group of litter pickers believe that couriers and other workers that drive company vehicles (utilities etc) are to blame for the rubbish.

They don’t have their own vehicle. They get given a van to drive around doing their job, with no or very little time for breaks. They have to return the vehicle back to the depot in a clean condition. So they buy food and drink based on where they have been working around. They toss the empty food and drink packaging out on the roads.

Their employers need to issue a rubbish bag to put their rubbish in. At the end of the shift back at the depot, put the bag of rubbish in a bin there

Because they aren't being fined 1,000 quid. If they were, they wouldn't do it.

Red Bull drinkers must have a low mentality. As I litter pick and we cannot do a litter pick without picking Red Bull cans.

I’m sure that Red Bull and McDs have ingredients in them that dulls their brains especially any self awareness parts too.

People need to understand that the outside isn’t one great big bin.

Finished that bottle of Coke? Leave it in your vehicle and take it to a bin when get home, your destination etc.

I think there is definitely a selfish/ not taught issue affecting the younger generation.

We have huge issues with rubbish in my block of flats. Rent here is expensive. Most who live here work in professional jobs, mostly in the City.

Trying to get people to dispose of their recycling properly is incredibly difficult. Loads of households get food boxes (think gusto, hello fresh etc) and get masses of online shopping so there are lots and lots of big cardboard boxes arriving daily.

Trying to get people to break them down flat so we can fit more stuff into the bin is an ongoing battle. We have a porter who started out super patient and understanding but is now completely infuriated as supposedly intelligent people struggle to comprehend that one intact cardboard box takes up more space than one flat one and when there is a limited amount of bin space for 40 odd flats this matters.

They will also pile rubbish up on top of the bin. This is a huge issue as the bin collectors won't move the bin if the lid isn't shut. The recyling bins are at the front of our bin room (and due to relative sizes we can't change this) so if they are deemed unloveable then none of the other household waste bins get emptied either. So we have to pay for a private contractor to come out to take the rubbish away. The costs of this goes onto the already substantial service charge (full time portering in central london isn't cheap).

The management company now issue fines as the rule following owners are totally and utterly sick of subsidising the flats (mostly non resident landlords) who can't follow simple instructions about what to do with rubbish.

There are posters up about what to do galore, and advice about what to do if the bins are full. The response to the fines though has been for people to spend time peeling the delivery labels off their boxes (so they can't be identified when they dump them) rather than flatten them.

I find it mind boggling especially as there is a public access recycling point <3 mins walk away with loads of bins. I've pretty much given up using ours and walk all my stuff round there (boxes flattened!)

On the odd occasion I've tackled anyone about it they claim not to have seen the notices, or have no experience of bin collectors being militant and not taking rubbish away. Which given the frequent threads on here I find incredible - did their parents totally shelter them? Did they never experience this at university when living in rented accommodation?

I was well aware when I still lived in my parents house in a remote city that if the bin lid wasn't shut the bin wouldn't get collected.

I’ve been saying for years that we need to bring back the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaign. That messaging was everywhere when I was a kid, on signs, even in food wrappers, why on earth did they stop it?! I made a long journey last week and was shocked at the miles and miles of rubbish at the sides of the roads. I live in a city and had a walk along the river the other day and there was an area where people had been sliding bags of rubbish, an old mattress and a fridge down into the water, it’s so depressing to see!! We need to
bring back a public campaign asap. Perhaps we could start a petition to get it discussed in parliament?

And MN perpetuates this. Every thread is met with comments about not challenging anyone because we don’t know what they’re going through or prioritising ourselves over everyone and everything else. Basic human decency has gone out the window. Sometimes, prioritising ourselves is the right call. Often, considering other people is the decent and right thing to do.

I saw a family get up from a table in Burgerking. There was 2 women and about 6 children, the table and floor was littered with wrappers, dropped food, empty drinks. I thought they couldn’t leave that crap as they packed up the children. They had the audacity to push the chairs back in area the piles of rubbish.
The staff arrived to clear up, it didn’t take a feather out of them.
I would be mortified to leave any place like that. Staff aren’t personal slaves.
I gave them a passive aggressive death stare x 3.

Unfortunately some parents DO teach their kids to litter, certainly knew someone growing up who always threw rubbish wherever she felt like as her mum had told her she would be putting someone (presumably street cleaner) out of work.

It’s because there is a sense these days, that you do what is easiest for you. It pervades everything. People rush to get on to buses and trains, without waiting for others to disembark. People throw litter so they don’t have to carry it to the nearest bin. It’s true that often bins aren’t emptied enough, so it doesn’t matter.

People walk three abreast on the pavement so others have to walk in the road. Cars park wherever they like, so others are inconvenienced. Putting hazard flashers on means you can park on double yellow lines or on someone’s driveway.

Dogs bark, incessantly, dog poo is left on pavements and verges.

It’s someone else’s responsibility apparently. We’ve lost the belief that we should look out for one another. It’s everyone for themselves now and we are the poorer for it.

Really bad in the NE. Absolute shit hole here. Especially when the schools have had their lunch breaks.

People have no sense of civic pride. And trash their own environment.
There is an arrogance about it. Almost as if taking care of it properly demeans them in some way.
No bins or if they are, are not collected and emptied. Which doesn’t help.
Some people aren’t very bright and / or have never been taught to be bothered.
But mainly, it is a mindset. For some almost an entitlement. When Glastonbury ends and everyone leaves rubbish everywhere. If other people do, will I look odd if I don’t do the same ?
When there is any big occasion and ditto. But they all I suspect, care about the environment. Hypocrites. Each and every one.

When the late Queen was crowned I suspect there wasn’t litter left behind.

I hate it too. There is no excuse for it. Nothing to do with how well off you are. I wish it could be shamed. It is like the person is sticking two fingers up at everyone else. This place is not just theirs. We all live in it.
And you are right. Go abroad and places are often pristine. Where people want to live in clean lovely looking places. With people employed to make sure they are kept that way.

It was drilled into us with the 'keep Britain tidy' campaign and we taught our kids the same.
We need another campaign but apparently it will never happen.
People really do believe rubbish magically disappears!!

Bournemouth beach after a sunny day is astonishing. Not just one particular demographic. Everyone. Some of it is then washed away/blown into the sea, or pecked at by seagulls. I bet half the groups of middle class kids we see would say they care about the environment. Fine in theory, but not in reality.

Yes. Or when you walk up a path on a hill and there’s a big bag of fast food rubbish someone has just walked off and left. I don’t understand.