Why are Brits so prone to littering ?

[Salida]

I'm not asking for your litter horror stories - we all have them. I'm asking for your thoughts on something that perplexes me. Just why is it that Britons are so prone to littering (and the oldies on here will confirm, that we have become much more so) - why we seem to litter so much more than countries?

Didn't realise it's middle class thing to not be a filthy bastard and use your common sense

No it's a middle class thing to want doing the right thing to be difficult so you can tell everyone how superior you are.

Because they're selfish, unthinking scruffs?

It's the way you're brought up, I don't think it's a Brit thing as such - I always take my rubbish home (if there's no empty bin, it goes home in my pockets/bag with me) and my kids always do the same, even now teens.
It's ingrained behaviour.

Put a selection of bins where people are. Make it easy.

I think the reopenings after lockdown has pretty much blown the idea that it just needs to be made easier out of the water - what could be easier with drive-thru food you get in a car than to drive it to whereever you're going and throw it away there when you get out? But those wrappers are still everywhere - everyone I know working in hotels and similar anywhere near reopened sites have had to deal with people going out of their way to use their car parks, some moving barriers to do it, just to treat it like a giant bin even when there are large accessible bins available.

Some people just don't care about others and no amount of convenience is going to beat that if wider social systems do so little about it. If someone is carrying fruit, it's pretty easy to carry a bag to take the remains away with you.

Because an apple or banana is easy and clean to carry and peel and cores are sticky, smelly and inconvenient

I'm sorry, but that is just such a crap excuse!
I don't get that - you wrap it up, I can't imagine just dropping it on the ground as I walk down the street or just leaving it after a picnic or whatever.
You pick it up, wrap it up if it's sticky! You can always wash your bag or pocket when you get home

Other nations do it as well, for example some Pakistani friends were shocked at the litter left by other Pakistanis at their beauty spots in Northern Pakistan such as Fairy Meadows & have complained about it on Facebook.

I have just seen the news OMG. It's disgraceful. There is no excuse. Take a bag and take it home. I always think when driving to work about the litter. I offer see volunteer litter pickers, who do a great job, but really we need to re-start the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. That was running when I was a child and I wouldn't dream of dropping litter. It seems too many people don't give a shit about the environment, the locals or the next family to visit. It's such a shame that covid doesn't just effect stupid selfish idiots. That is exactly what these people are.

It’s not a new thing, about 20 years ago I was waiting for a bus and a guy had bought a pint of milk and took the top off it to drink it. He dropped the lid on the floor. DESPITE BEING STOOD NEXT TO A BIN. It was actually more effort to drop it.

When challenged, he wanted to make sure the council litter pickers were kept in a job.

People are thick as mince and don't give one. It is sad but true.

Anyone with half a brain would take their litter home with them or find a bin. It's not hard.

Laziness, stupidity, entitlement.

The social norm has changed. When I was a kid in the 1970s teachers and old ladies would shout at you if you dropped litter and Keep Britain Tidy was printed on lots of packaging. We could probably change the social norm back again with effort.

People will leave litter where they see others have done the same. I once saw someone open the door of their car and dump their Macdonald’s rubbish onto the ground. The bin was a few feet away.

People are bone idle and selfish and have no respect for their environment or others around them. If they were called out on their behaviour by others around them and it was see as socially unacceptable to litter, then I’m sure we would see less of it.

I agree but I travel to France often and they also do litter a lot.
My ex used to litter, and it would infuriate me.
They just don't care. Simple as that.
How do you make them care?

In Norway they pay people for recycling! Food shops have these reverse vending machines where you put in your bottles and cans, and the machine gives you a voucher to spend in the shop. That's why you often get homeless people walking around parks picking up rubbish, then they can recycle them and buy something to eat, and it keeps parks clean.

You pay a deposit on them when you buy them, and the machines are where you can return the bottles and get your deposit back. You don’t have to spend the voucher in the shop, you can also redeem it for cash (eg if you’ve had a party and are returning crates of empties)

I think we have become a very selfish and entitled nation. People do not give a shit about the consequences for their actions as its only them doing it. Forgetting that thousands of others are as selfish as them and they are also doing it.

Exactly this'll another poster said

I also think we don't have campaigns in a
School like we used too in the 70s.

Irene we watching stuff about littering g as a little one and it's stayed with me. I would never litter unless it's an apple core And I'm in the woods.

People are saying “lack of bins” and they could be right.

Took my daughter to the park this week and there was one over flowing bin with cans and bottles surrounding it. That was the only bin I could see in a huge park.

I agree that it is laziness, entitlement and stupidity.

I certainly don't agree that it is lack of bins. Lots of places have plenty of bins. A local shop has a bin right outside and yet I have seen people buy a pack of cigarettes, come out of the shop tearing the wrapper off and through it on the floor right by the bin. Also school children unwrap chocolate bars and through the wrapper on the floor. I once told some children off for doing that (they were about 10) and they told me to fu** off!

Also not enough parents teach their children respect and manners. I was taught that if I had rubbish and could not find a bin or they were full then you take the rubbish home with you. If I take food out (say a picnic) I make sure I have a carrier bag to put any rubbish in. Also tissue for things like apple cores, banana skins etc

It's down to class and how you've been raised. If you were to drive through an affluent area you won't see Happy Bday Chaz scribbled on a bedsheet and hung on a fence or roundabout. It's the same when England are playing in the Euros or World Cup. You don't see houses in affluent areas with England flags hanging out the upstairs windows

Littering is down to people's morals and what their parent's taught them growing up. I would never dream of having a bbq in a local park, burning the grass underneath and then leaving litter everywhere because I'm not a scum bag

I hate it when they litter areas of beauty. I live in Scotland and some places are marred by it.

Nope I've been to many countries just as bad as the uk for littering. I also think it was worse in the 80s.

London hasn't had bins in the tube in decades, but last time I was there the filth was staggering.

'no bins' is no excuse unless you are a skank - carry away what you brought. If you are such a princess that you can't cope with a banana peel, bring a bag for it.

smokers have always been skanks, though - turd ends and ash everywhere. I think that's why it got better for a while as fewer now smoke, but the general entitlement means that 'it is someone else's fault'. So people drop litter, and teach their kids to do the same.

dog muck isn't quite as bad here as in some places; never going to a French city again, disgusting!

I grew up in NZ where it was drummed into me for 26 years "be a tidy kiwi" with many non litering campaigns running. As a result NZ is comparatively pristine. And I would never dream of littering.

My DC are raised in UK, but from the time they could walk I've always got them to put their litter in the bin, or bag or pocket i.e. I've taught them from early on to take responsibility for their own rubbish.

I've nowlived in Uk for 26 years - I've always been apalled at the litter.
I don't recall being subjected to any public non-litter campaign the whole time I've lived here, apart from the bleedingly obvious occasional "please use the bin" sign/sticker.

I now live by a beach - every day people leave litter on otherwise pristine beaches - even beer bottles where children are swimming. Recently a dad was paddling in the water with his young child, 3 beer bottles washing around his ankles and he didn't even pick them up. My 12 yo went over and picked them up and I hope he felt fucking ashamed.

Short answer is people are cunts. And they are lazy. And unless these messages of very basic human/community decency such as "use the bin" of "take your rubbish home" are drummed into us from birth huge swathes of the population simply don't give a fuck.

Monkeys in shoes. Well I that but I guess monkeys only generate biodegradable litter . That Tim Minchin quote came to me when I watched aghast as the car in front of me in the lion section at WM safari park opened their window to throw litter out. That's the sum total of respect litterers have for 'wildlife' as there's not even the disconnect of a motorway there. They then shut it again. Yeah I might have come over very judgy and you might accuse me of being middle class (whatever) they were driving a perfectly respectable looking car at a theme park obviously impossible to tell anything about them. I think filthy feral bastard was my judgy comment. I passed the number plate to the park staff but they said it happens every day .
It doesn't matter what class I or litterer was. It's an obvious risk to animals everywhere. Same with balloon releases. You have to be actually bloody stupid to leave litter. But there are a lot of actually very very stupid people out there and some of them have even passed driving tests.

London hasn't had bins in the tube in decades, but last time I was there the filth was staggering.

Most tube stations have had clear plastic bag bins for several years now.

I don’t know but it truly boils my piss.