Who taught their offspring it’s ok to litter?

This, sadly.

Two parents, one of who treats me with contempt. Sadly one child has picked up this attitude.

You are not wrong. I have always said to any children in my care, if we all drop our rubbish there would be no space to walk in.
I think it’s teenagers and adults.
My area was always clean and tidy growing up, neighbours etc. it’s a fight against a brick wall.
I walked to the nearest shopping centre yesterday about 2 miles, piles and piles of rubbish everywhere, one bus stop had pizza boxes, empty drinks, it’s absolutely disgusting.
Everywhere full of fag butts, papers.
We need a huge hard hitting social media campaign to try to educate these manky people.
If it wasn’t for the bottle return scheme it’d be worse again.
Filthy human beings.

I live near an airport so lots of taxi drivers hanging around. They will park up on residential streets and country roads alike and toss takeaway wrappers and coffee cups out of their windows and drive off. We see it all the time and they absolutely don’t give a shit. I don’t think it makes a difference whether they are local or have just come for a fare, there seems to be an inability to just go and find a bin. I am so socially conditioned to not do this it never fails to shock/ anger me

It drives me mad and I’ve always insisted to ds that we leave things tidy wherever we go, including places like the cinema and theatre where I’m always shocked by the mess people leave behind.

I get this from my dad who once witnessed some teenage girls throwing large quantities of Chinese take away out of their [parked] car into the road around them.
he was on his way into the theatre but couldn’t stop thinking about it so in the interval he came out, picked up the discarded food and put it all over their car.
naughty I suppose but it’s always made me chuckle!!

They aren’t taught it, they are copying it.

Drives me mad. I get particularly annoyed by the ‘do know better’ teens and young people who are happy to march for whoever’s rights to gain woke points, but have no consideration for others in their everyday lives.

You see the disregard or outright contempt for cleaners, retail staff, waiting staff. Someone else will have to sort out their mess. God forbid that they actually have to tidy up their own mess or think of others in a non-performative/ no social media likes context.

I love waterfalls and we are on holiday in Scotland at the moment and seen quite a few. So many of these beautiful spots have been ruined by people leaving padlocks or bits of string or ribbon attached to rails or viewing platforms. They are left there by lovers I think as a symbol of their enduring relationship but really they are just litter.

Good on you. I hate littering and i too have posted discarded litter back through car windows. I was in town when a very well dressed lady was walking towards me eating a chocolate bar, she shoved the last piece in her mouth and threw the wrapper on the floor, me being me called out " oh no lady, not having that, get it picked up now" other pedestrians stopped and watched as the very red shamed faced lady picked up her litter. I bet she never did it again.
I would love to see the fine being raised to £500.

There are many people in UK who were never taught not to litter. Some come from deprived UK backgrounds. Some come from countries where dumping your trash on the public road is considered the norm.

Schools need to engage more on this. The amount of litter dropped every morning by children and their parents en route to my local schools is just unbelievable. If you say anything you are either a Karen or a racist.

Additionally there is a problem with bin men doing a sloppy job, foxes and cats opening bin bags left outside but not in a bin, seagulls and magpies foraging through bins.

And some councils have closed too many dumps,made it difficult or expensive to arrange special collections from homesand consistently fail to fine people for dumping and littering.

Then you also have the people who actively litter and encourage others to do so.

balloon/lantern releases.

it’s just littering.

I’m in my 50s and the road I live on is really terrible for rubbish. I pick rubbish out of my front garden every week.

One set of opposite neighbours, sane age as me, do litter picking etc with child in the cubs. we live on a nice estate and they have a lovely home, mines the tattier one. Sounds ok but in reality they are one of the culprits of the litter. If anything blows out of their bins they just leave it there including pieces of metal and car batteries and he tips chemicals from his cars down the drain in the street.

The rubbish I picked up from my drive this week was from them as it was all packaging from bedding plants that they had planted two days before.

as well as that there’s the general yobs spitting, swearing and dropping rubbish in the road or out of car windows. And the bins don’t get emptied often enough so it blows out of them too. So a big mixture.

Our council recently did a survey about litter and whether there should be more volunteer litter picks and if I wanted to be part of one. I replied that there should be more education about littering and fines actually enforced for littering and dog mess.

I go for a walk most lunchtimes at work. I walk past a small section of bamboo and noticed a full carrier bag chucked in there one day. This was a few months ago, now there is about ten carrier bags in there. I think once a place has litter, certain people then think it’s okay to add to it.

I also go down a bridleway. About two weeks ago ten sofas had been dumped at the end, it’s a lane that just goes to a farm so ideal for flytippers. The council have removed the sofas and then two days ago there’s now a huge pile of wood in the same place. People have no respect for our beautiful countryside

I am part of a voluntary litter picking group in my area.
Every time I go out, I always get congratulated by people for it, and I think "well, its not exactly hard, so why aren't you doing it as well?". Even though it shouldn't happen, I still come away feeling satisfied about playing my part in remedying an eyesore.

(I also get very irritated when local councillors don their obligatory hi vis and use it as an excuse for self-congratulatory publicity)

Excellent! So proud of you for doing this 😄

I think a large amount of litter is actually blown out of bins. I’ve noticed a fair amount on recycling bin day here for example, the bin men don’t pick it up when it drops out which I guess is their prerogative but there you go. Some is of course dropped but I don’t really see anyone doing this anymore, it was way more common when I was younger.

My grown up children still hand me their rubbish!! 😅

It makes me so angry and there is just no need for it. If you are out and there is no bin or the bin is full you take your rubbish home. If you are in a car and have rubbish, again, you take your rubbish home not throw it out the window.

Yesterday in a car park in my local town there was a bin that was full and people had left rubbish on the path around it. Why? To make matters worse there were 2 almost empty bins just across the path. Obviously the lazy slobs could not manage to walk to them.

It's crazy isn't it. Can't just be a few people either, must be quite a large percentage of the population given how much litter there is. I was brought up to put all rubbish into a bag and brought home to dispose of. Picnics were carefully packed up and no trace of our presence remained.

It really enrages me to see how much litter is around these days. I live near several beaches and the poor cleaning team are usually having to clean up mass litter of takeaway rubbish and more often than not, broken bottles that have been deliberately smashed.

I rarely agree with Jeremy Clarkson but on littering I can understand his anger. Personally, I'd machine gun the litter louts, they don't deserve to live with those of us who wouldn't litter and put wildlife and the enviroment at risk but unfortunately, I'm not allowed. 😡

I’d be wary of getting punched or yelled at if I told people to pick their litter up - I think it’s a very similar outlook to pavement cyclists or people who don’t use headphones. Either not understanding why something’s wrong or knowing it’s wrong & doing it anyway.

There are absolutely people who don’t give a shit and litter.

Another issue that contributes is the lack of bin emptying in some places. Public bins that are overflowing so you can’t add anything or things are falling out and blowing around. Not public obviously but we went to a theme park and the bin in the queue was so full the rubbish was literally everywhere.

Our street is also covered in recycling on windy collection days. The new receptacles they’ve provided don’t actually contain it properly.

I hate it. People leaving cans (not even empty!) under their seat in public transport, just dropping packets and wrappers as they go or tossing bags outside of cars. I mostly say something unless it’s a large group. Theres a mentality of it’s someone else’s job (often volunteers more than the council), it’s not hurting anyone or it is too far from a bin… infuriating. I honestly wonder about the state of their houses.

It’s when you drive over into Europe and you see how much pride everyone takes in France, Netherlands, Denmark etc. Beautifully tidy, clean and well maintained. Also so depressing to come home again to the rubbish, the unloved feeling that no one gives a shit about their community.