To think countryside littering has gotten a lot worse through the pandemic

[LAgeDeRaisin]

I have a 45 min commute and have been driving to and from work through the last year (I'm a hospital doctor before the lockdown police arrive).

I live in the country and drive through an area that has become more popular for people to go on walks etc. In the last year the litter has massively increased. It is strewn all along the verges along my commute. You used to get the odd crisp packet or Macdonald's packaging but it's just everywhere now. The roadside looks like someone has emptied bags of rubbish every few feet. Cans, bottles, packaging, bits of picnic, broken foldup seats, bin bags, take away stuff, just everything.

It's heartbreaking and makes me feel really depressed driving in. I hate litter at the best of times but in the country it just stays forever- at least in cities it might get picked up by those streetcleaner machines or people employed to clean. We can't employ people to comb the whole of the countryside. I can't understand the mindset- why can't people just have a carrier bag in their car to keep their rubbish?

Has anyone else noticed this or AIBU?

As a nation we are a filthy nation, UK has dumped over 15 large freight ships on the beaches of Asia in the last 14 months, against EU rules, using flags of convenience and cash buyers to get round them.

We also ship so called waste for recycling to developing countries, much which ends up in the sea.

Chucking your dog shit or Macd's is small in comparison.

ANPR cameras can now detect objects thrown from a car and hopefully can issue very heavy fines.

YANBU, I've noticed it a lot more lately too.
Go for a walk round the local parks quite a bit and the amount of litter chucked in the hedges and around the sides of the path are getting worse lately.
People are just absolute fucking scruffs, how hard is it to take your litter home or wait until you find a bin?!

@beela

It's not up to schools though, social responsibility needs to be taught by parents.

Well said, completely agree - both mine are in their teens now and have it instilled in them since being toddlers to pocket rubbish until they find a bin/get home. It doesn't occur to them to just fling it on the floor. Not smug, just saying parents need to teach them that it's not acceptable.

It's filthy and I'd love to see some work done on profiling and dealing with the perpetrators. My children range from 16-25yrs and I know that they certainly don't litter. I've adopted an area of road about half a mile in each direction from my home. It's a very rural area but the road is quite busy at commuting times. I collect a minimum of 5 bin liners from this stretch of road every fortnight. The main rubbish would be red bull cans, takeaway coffee cups, chocolate and crisp wrappers, polystyrene containers and cigarette boxes. It's satisfying to know you've completely cleared an area of litter and the bags are reducing but it's very frustrating.

I agree, lots more rubbish and I’m also hoping once shops/ pubs reopen that this will reduce. I try to pick some up every day (mostly coffee cups) and find that’s quite a good way to not get overly annoyed about it!

We as a nation really don't seem to care much about our environment.

Some European countries I've been to if you do stuff like that passers by stop and tell you off!

I wonder why we don't care.. Must be something about our culture.

@Userg1234

There are several reasons I think for the extra litter. More people walking for exercise, more dog owners. But the biggest problem is local concils. Our tip has reduced its hours even before covid, the refuse guys are being stretched by the amount of waste due to online shopping but this gives them no time to chase waste that blows about and the introduction of charges for things like green waste collection

If someone throws a coffee cup on the ground rather than carry it until they find a bin/get home, it's not the council's fault. You could provide bins every ten yards and some people would still throw stuff on the ground. Look at the threads we have had over the last year about horses in fields. Owners were putting up signs all over the place and erecting electric fences and people still kept feeding and killing horses. The batteries just got stolen and the signs ripped up. People are just selfish twats.

What we need is better enforcement. New technology means that software can monitor CCTV cameras and spot litter being dropped without the need for a human operator. This can then be followed by a guided missile a fine.

I agree it’s really bad in places near me

And do t get me started on dog mess

It’s the dog poo that’s got really bad in the village I live in. Seriously bad. And my mum says it’s the same in her village.. just prolific dog poo everywhere. What can be done about it?

@Lesserspottedmama

It’s the dog poo that’s got really bad in the village I live in. Seriously bad. And my mum says it’s the same in her village.. just prolific dog poo everywhere. What can be done about it?

www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/27/dog-dna-test-pooprints

Definitely. A lot of people who don't live in the country side and think it merely exists for their own amusement are spending more time in it.

Schools do teach this stuff - like we do most stuff to try and combat the rise and rise of truly dreadful parenting - but without it being reinforced at home we’re wasting our time.

When parents model chucking litter on the floor (have seen it so often) or watch kids do it and say nothing then what can we do?

I was listening to something on the radio this week about deterrents and they were saying that people knowing there is a risk of being caught is the best deterrent so yes the number plate idea is an excellent one.

@LAgeDeRaisin

I don't have a problem with people driving from cities to walk in the countryside (even if I do prefer it quieter) I just wish everyone would respect it and take their rubbish home or put it in a bin.

I wonder if schools could help to educate about littering? There must be vast numbers of people who think it's okay. Could education help? I remember doing things in school about litter and it's probably still a teaching point now so maybe there isn't much more to add. I just don't understand why it's so prevalent.

I wish there was a way to help people understand the impact it has.

I’m sick of this. I’ve been teaching in schools up and down the country since the early 80s, and we’ve always taught anti-littering and caring for the environment. Look at the area after any school trip lunchtime with teachers, no litter left. Schools HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR DECADES! Parents need to step up. Society needs to challenge litterers. Dog owners, fast food franchises and the rest need to be made responsible.

@ArmchairTraveller Sick of what? It was quite a balanced comment. All I said was that perhaps more education could help, but that it was probably already a teaching point so perhaps there isn't much more to add.

Honestly what does saying 'it's down to parents' achieve? It IS down to them, but obviously a lot of parents litter. Saying it's down to parents doesn't solve anything at all because society has no control over parenting.

Thanks to the posters with helpful sugestions- more skips, identifiable receipts, etc.

@Downton57

Primary schools do anti-litter projects, but we then get complaints from parents that the children are being 'forced' to pick up litter in the playground: it's not their job, they'll get a disease etc. Too often, I've been in the middle of talking about littering to a class and a child has piped up that their parent always throws their MacDonalds out the car or some similarly depressing tale. Schools can try, but out of school, the children learn how to behave from their parents.

I see it all the time in my local area, it doesn't matter how well the schools teach kids to not litter, be kind, not swear etc. If the parents model bad behaviour then the kids will follow.

I don't know what can be done about it but I hope those kids will grow up less selfish and with more awareness of environmental impact than their parents.

On a small B road over the Black Mountain. Our worst littering problem is from cyclists- energy drink bottles, energy gel wrappers. If anything this has reduced a bit during lockdown because there are fewer packs of MAMILS. Likewise the usual fast food wrappers. In the summer, however, there was a really depressing outbreak of people dumping whole bags of their camping litter over hedges, often into fields of livestock. I completely fail, in all of these cases to understand why people refuse to take their litter home with them

Schools have been teaching people not to litter for decades! Littering is people just choosing to be selfish

It's definitely a car window problem round here. Takeaway coffee cups and energy drink cans dropped out of windows alongside country lanes. Always the same brands - so probably just a small number of people doing it every day and throwing their rubbish at the same point in their commute.

I can't say I have noticed more litter when walking on footpaths and in local beauty spots though. People (outskirts of the Lakes) seem to appreciate the beauty of the countryside but treat roads and verges like a bin.

AYBU for using "gotten".

But on the rest of it, you're right.

It has become worse. I live in the Lakes and I've been seeing so much more crap on the roads and paths. Much of it clearly lobbed out of cars - when there's no Maccies within an hour's drive and you find Happy Meal packaging, it makes you wonder where these scummers have driven from to litter a National Park. Also fed up of dog shite, bagged up and left. At least the actual poo will biodegrade of you're too lazy to remove it!

I am alarmed by the number of empty beer cans by the roadside.

It’s awful by us. We’re very fortunate to live next to a large area of woodland and common land. It’s only really used in normal times by dog walkers and horse riders and usually you could tell when there’s been a bank holiday without looking at the calendar because the amount of litter increases due to extra visitors.
However it’s now a daily occurrence that coffee cups, cans, drink cartons, take away wrappers etc are dropped. When we had snow over Christmas a large number of broken sledges were discarded, just left lying there.
People don’t pick up after their dogs, and many who do just leave the bags lying on the ground or hanging from trees.

Hopefully once the retail parks reopen they’ll return to those to get their exercise.

We are a less considerate country, and indeed this goes back many years. As for litter, one of the impacts of the IRA bombing campaigns of the 1970s was reduced litter bins, and then more recently some councils reduced refuse collection to fortnightly.

Does not make littering any less acceptable.

I just do not understand how hard it is to pocket the litter or put it back in your car and take it home. Presumably these people come to visit these places because they are lovely then they just dump rubbish everywhere. It gives me the rage.

We live in a hamlet on a long winding lane which somehow seems to have become a recommended cycling route. Now we have these cyclists (hurling through at top speed, separate subject and don't get me started) dropping energy drink pouches as they go. These people aren't kids either.

YANBU. I have always been pretty miffed with the littering where I live, but it's just got ridiculous in the last year or so. I have bought some litter pickers and me and my son now do a litter picking run a couple of times a week, and we are filling big bin bags so quickly. My son is only 4 and he can't comprehend why people are dumping their rubbish on the ground.

I moved to the UK a looong time ago, and I was quite shocked by how much crap is thrown on the ground everywhere, and I'm still not used to it. When I was little, looking after the environment was drilled into us at school and at home, and I would get a right bollocking for not picking up my sweet wrapper. I don't know what the solution is. I guess we just have to keep teaching our kids and leading by example.