To ask if you drop litter?

[Ifeelbloodyawful]

And if so, why?

The amount of rubbish I see dropped on the floor always astounds me, so presumably a LOT of people do it. Country lanes around here are littered with rubbish presumably thrown out of car windows, which I find particularly lazy (just take it home where you presumably have a fully functioning bin!). I know some of it blows out of public bins, or escapes from refuse vehicles/landfill, etc, but I don't believe that accounts for all of it (or am I wrong?).

I was raised not to drop litter and have been known to frantically chase down an errant receipt on a windy day , so I just can't fathom dropping litter at all. Even if there isn't a bin nearby (and I know that is an issue sometimes) then why is dropping it a better option than putting it in a pocket/bag until you find a bin or get home?!

AIBU in asking who is dropping it all, and why, and how can we stop it?

@RomanyQueen1

The filters are made of a type of plastic. They take years, up to a decade to degrade. Even so, they become microplastics in the meantime which are bad news for aquatic food chains as heavy metals and pollutants adhere to the surfaces of microplastics, which get eaten by aquatic animals. The heavy metals and pollutants then adsorb into the animals natural body fats, which accumulate up the food chain.
Not great for humans eating seafood either.

Roll-your-own without filters are less damaging to the environment, but still ugly rubbish.

Most of the litter in our streets is due to bin men though. I've witnessed them dropping it out the bins and just walking away, it flying out the bin lorries. It's a lot worse since we started recycling everything.

We have the same situation where I live. I moved from an area that supplies a wheelie bin for all recycling and there was very little litter on the street. I couldn't understand why there was so much litter where I live now until I realised it was always more noticeable on bin day, we have kerbside sorting. I followed a bin lorry a few months ago and the recycling was flying out like confetti.

We have a green park nearby. It's just had 2 bins put in. However they are used but rarely emptied. So the litter blows out or over flows. And ends up everywhere. Normally if pick bits up. But people. Put their poop bags in there too so I'm sorry but I'm not touching contaminated stuff.

Around here it's terrible if it's windy when on bin days and the recycle bins get knocked over. I know other cities have open boxes which sounds even worse.

WheresAllTheGoodInTheWorld do you mean you don't want to touch the bin to put your own rubbish in? Or that you don't feel comfortable picking up other people's litter?

I don't drop it but I don;t pick up other people's either. I throw apple cores in the hedge (but wouldn't do it with banana skin; I rarely eat it and also someone can slip over it).

Ines always taught to put my litter in a bin or take it home with me. Even my 3 yr old looks for a bin and if there isnt one in their pocket it goes

Well clearly not Mumsnetters dropping it all based on this sample!!

It really saddens and disgusts me that some people just don't care.

Around here the bin collections do play a part. It's a windy area and the bin lids easily get blown open, especially when people put them out without the lid fully closed. I always pick up loads of rubbish after the bin men have been round.

I do think teens/kids are often culprits, we live close to a secondary school and the most trodden routes are heavily littered.

My parents live on the coast, next to a beautiful beach. On sunny weekends it's a popular place for picnics. However, the amount of rubbish left behind is incredible. Plastic drinks bottles, cans, crisp packets, disposable barbecues... Admittedly, there are no bins on the beach itself but there are plenty in the nearby carpark, and presumably the food and drink was carried to the beach in some kind of bag so empties could be carried back the same way. Even if the perpetrators believe that there is some sort of beach cleaning service, the tide obviously washes a lot of the rubbish into the sea twice daily. After Blue Planet, I find it astonishing and heartbreaking that rubbish being left on beaches is still an issue.

I meant to say, I am impressed with those of you who confront people about it. I wouldn't be brave enough.
I saw a teen/tween spit chewing gum out on the floor (mere feet from a public bin) in the under seven part of the park, I was desperate to say something but chickened out!

I pick litter in my village. By what I pick up and where Id say it’s teenagers and whoever is drinking all the energy drinks.

I don't drop litter, my kids, dh don't either. In my area there are a lot of alleys, and people just lob their crap (and I mean literal as well as rubbish) into the alleys. We on ly get our bins emptied twice a month here, so some people just stack up their binbags, wildlife gets into etc, so trash is spread that way. Some people are just filthy however, and it doesn't matter how many bins are nearby.

I've told this story before on MN.

Walking along a beach in Australia with a group of women (British and Irish) I'd tagged along with. One women dropped some litter and her pal picks it up and hands it to her, apologising as she did so 'sorry, habit, my mum was always really anal about litter' . First woman then proceeds to tell story about how she'd been in a national park and the guide they were with told her off about dropping litter, she clearly didn't get it at all and was really cross she'd been told off. In a national park. For dropping litter.

Yes, there really are people that stupid out there. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen and heard it myself.

We were also once driving along (this is in London) and the driver of the car in front of us at the lights opened his window and chucked out a drink carton.

No never, but living in the countryside see that it is a dreadful problem. People seem to think it ok to drive into the countryside and throw rubbish over hedges and into fields. Bottles, cans and nappies being worst offenders.

I absolutely do not litter, i hate littering and have challenged people I've seen dropping it.

It's lazy and entitled. Why should it be someone's job to pick up litter? It gives me the rage to see gobby teens chucking rubbish. I despair.

I'm bloody fanatical about litter and not above calling complete strangers' out for it. I imagine I totally embarrassed my children years ago on occasions when we took out any of their friends whose mums weren't perhaps quite as evangelical about litter-dropping as I was.

"Pick it up and put it in your pocket until we find a bin."
''No pockets? Then hold it in your hand until we find a bin."

And if they argued, as a couple did, that their mums let them, they'd get the raised eyebrow and the utterly disbelieving tone:

"Does she? Does she really? I don't think she does really, do you? Hmm? But anyway, when you're with me you don't drop litter."

On the downside I had to learn to go through my dcs' pockets very carefully when doing laundry. They were always stuffed with trash.