to think that a lot a people are disgusting?

[carlajean]

Near where I live, there's a beautiful park. Lots of people use it, and when we walked there yesterday, there was litter everywhere - mostly cans and plastic bottles. Why do people come and enjoy a space then leave their litter? I just don't understand it.

[OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat]

I agree LovelyBoots. The McDonalds rubbish I mentioned is often nowhere near a McDonalds so I don't think they should have to go out and pick it up.

I do know that they do get involved with litter picking in and around their restaurants, but obviously they can't account for people who use the drive through, eat their food and sometime later, dump the rubbish out of the car. I've seen McDs rubbish out in the countryside, where the nearest McDs might be 10/20/30+ miles away.

I suppose if it offends me so much, I should just pick it up myself, which would be less effort overall than complaining to McDonalds and them having to go out and pick it up.

It's probably because there's a lot of McDonalds about, they serve a lot of customers, their rubbish is easily recognisable and a small percentage of their customers are utter morons that see nothing wrong with dropping litter that there seems to be so much of it.

But it still annoys me .

[treaclesoda]

I hate litter dropping, no matter how small.

Another thing I hate is also hate is public areas where bins are provided but the whoever is responsible for emptying them doesn't bother. They start overflowing, and next thing there is stuff falling out th3 top, or people try to force rubbish in when it doesn't fit etc. An un emptied bin is worse than no bin at all.

[mupperoon]

I ordered a minicab to pick me up from my house once - as we were pulling away, the driver threw a Coke can out of his window onto the road outside the house he'd just seen me walk out of. I told him to stop and pick it up. He laughed as if I was joking. I started to lose my temper a bit, and he was forced to stop and pick the can up. I couldn't believe the stupidity of it.

You see people throwing stuff out of car windows or into people's front gardens all the time. I am continually clearing other people's litter from our driveway. It's partially that there are no bins anywhere any more, but I think people simply think it's someone else's problem. I have heard people say "this is what I pay council tax for". Well, they should pay ME directly if they want to litter on my driveway, or stick cans and crisp packets into my hedge!

[Tinywavesandripples]

Yadnbu. Littering is a disgrace and quite sadly commonplace in Britain.

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

Throwing litter out of a car window is cuntish behavior.

Boils. My. Piss.

People leave so much litter in our local play park, but there are bins every where! I've taught DS to do a loud 'only dirty/naughty people leave their rubbish/dog poo on the floor!' When we see people do it. Being shamed by a toddler seems to encourage people to pick up their crap and use the bin.

[Burren]

There's a character in a Catherine Fox novel who says that his definition of middle-class is someone who is more easily able to imagine themselves killing someone than dropping litter.

I grew up working-class with parents who would have been furious if we dropped litter, and to this day will carry wrappings etc for miles if there is no bin, so I tend to think this is nonsense. But it's still interesting to think about why some people happily drop litter and some don't - it always parenting? What stops you littering? Childhood training? Adult civic consciousness?

[specialsubject]

ever seen the photos of what a festival site looks like after the end? Everyone just drops what they no longer want.

smokers drop dog ends. Drinkers drop the cans and bottles. Dog walkers do the disgusting plastic bag festoon. Kids drop cans and sweet papers (never buy a house on a route to a school). People chuck rubbish out of car windows.

Too many dirty, selfish, entitled people.

[oldgrandmama]

Some people are just foul. Near me, some houses set well back from the road, in front of them what could be a lovely green, planted with ornamental and fruit trees, really pretty. But people sling their rubbish all over it - including, the other day, two fluorescen tubes, smashed all over the grass. I think a lot of it is chucked out from passing cars.

I used to remonstrate, politely, with people I saw dropping litter. Not now - likely to get a punch or at the very least, a stream of abuse.

[DeeCrepid]

We have a beautiful green area bordering a lake near our property. Last year, about this time, a group or teenagers decided to have an afternoon/ evening picnic. They left ALL their rubbish, coke cans, chocolate wrappers, crisp packets cigarette ends. How could they despoil this beautiful spot I cannot get my head around it.,

[TheLovelyBoots]

I have no earthly idea why smokers get a free pass. They're unnervingly blithe about dropping butts.

[FellReturneth]

YANBU. Lots of people disgust me for all sorts of reasons. Littering is just one of them. There really is no limit to how disgusted I can be by people, and the older I get the worse it is. My tolerance level of just about everyone is at an all time low. Disgust is practically a full time career for me now.

[RiverTam]

a friend who mentored people on probabtion told me an interesting story once - walking down the street with him, he's eating a carton of chicken, finishes it and chucks the carton on the ground. She's shocked and says 'don't do that, there's a bin just there!'. He looked at her with total incomprehension and said (pointing at all the rubbish around them) 'but everyone does it'.

He simply didn't function in a world where it was considered a bad thing to do. He just didn't get it, they were world's apart on their understanding of this. Which is pretty depressing. Adults who do it in front of children , cos that's what we all need, isn't it, another generation of litterbugs. But I guess that's where it starts. My mum would have been livid if we'd ever done such a thing.

I've had a pop at people in my area about this, I don't know if there's a cultural difference going on as well, but frankly I don't care if the streets of Lagos are littered in rubbish, please don't do it here! Always within distance of a bin, too.

[Itsfab]

The council have recently put signs up saying Take Your Litter Home. Other People Do, and I think it is a good idea. We live in an area of outstanding beauty and do not want to see it spoilt.

.

[ViviPru]

YANBU. Gives me the rage. I feel I have the right to deem people who drop litter as less human than those who do not.

[ViviPru]

Fell

[FellReturneth]

River I think there is a cultural difference in attitude. I live in the Middle East and people just open their car doors and dump their litter straight onto the street all the time. They have clean up teams on the beach, early on a Saturday mornings because people spend Fridays picnicking on the beach with their families and just leave all their rubbish behind. they just don't care about the environment at all. It comes as a real shock when you've grown up in the UK.

[StupidTrombone]

Plenty of green space here and very little litter. I always notice the difference when we go anywhere else in the UK.

We have a county-wide annual day of litter picking with a really good turn out. You get all the binbags etc supplied and people organise trailers and tractors to take away big items. Works really well and keeps people invested in it staying that way.

[Itsfab]

When I was a child being a litter bug was something to be ashamed of. Now people just throw litter down with no shame.

[treaclesoda]

Weirdly, I think the opposite - I think the street where I live have much less litter than when I was growing up, despite there being no public litter bins any more. It like people are now conditioned to just take stuff home with them, which is good. I can't remember the last time I saw someone in town just throw litter down as they walked along.

BUT when night time comes and the weekend comes and the drinkers come stumbling out of the pubs and into the takeaway, all hell breaks loose and there is litter carnage.

The other place I see just as much litter these days is in the country - the opening the car windows and throwing it out mentality is alive and well, sadly.

[treaclesoda]

That should say 'the streets' , not just one street where I live, I mean the whole town!