To be pissed off that parks are closed?

[breadcheeseandpickle]

AIBU to think this is not on?

I have complied with rules but despite some restrictions being lifted there still isn’t much on, and waking the streets is really no fun.

I work in a primary school. We already discuss this with the children, encourage them to respect their environment and talk about the impact of litter etc. Unfortuntaely we can only do so much

Quite, @AaronPurr. It's up to parents to teach their children this stuff, and unfortunately a fair few don't bother. After all, it's not the kids who leave shitty nappies in parks and car parks, it's their parents. The cost of cleaning this up will be enormous, and it's local residents who will be footing the bill.

I just don't understand the mentality behind it, I really don't. Same as I don't understand why people think it's ok to throw litter out of their car windows.

There seems to be a perception that public space doesn't "belong" to anyone, when it actually belongs to everyone.

How about instead of sending out wardens to fine people they use the increase in council tax to clear the bins more promptly, doesn’t take a genius to figure out this wk the parks would be heaving. Our local parks bins are heaving- yes people should take their rubbish home of full but the onus should be on the council to maintain the parks

@TheQueef

Sadly not surprised Saskia there is an undercurrent at the moment, wild, feral and dangerous. That's the naice leafy side of town too.

There is. I live five minutes away from the park, I've got to say it doesn't feel safe at the moment.

YANBU.

And as for the rubbish, people shouldn't be dropping it in the first place. What happened to putting in a sodding bin? Is it really hard to do that or take it home with you?

People seem to have no understanding of the environmental impact of littering. Its time there was a national campaign to educate people.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/566467?fbclid=IwAR0tiz3Aqbmo2JtL_oK8fUwMBWENO-HcCckVzdnx5WlxFTh4EOBON59Mlv4

@tenlittlecygnets

It's made me so cross that if someone suggested a minimum sentence for littering of 3 months house arrest, monitored by electronic tag, right now I'd support them.

@LakieLady, I'd rather see people who drop litter being made to spend their time cleaning it up, so they see how long it takes and how horrible it is. Genuinly can't understand why people think it's OK.

(I'm pretty sure the Guardian is against littering too...)

Yes, I wasn't being entirely serious lol. Although there would be a certain poetic justice in putting them back in lockdown for behaving badly on being released from lockdown.

When I was young enough to have picnics on the grass and still stand up again without assistance, I used to tuck a rubbish bag in with all the picnic stuff. It makes it so easy to gather it up, and if there are no bins, it makes it easy to take it home again.

And this behaviour is so at odds with environmental awareness, which I thought was something young people were really into. I really am mystified by it.

It is also about making it easy for people to use bins. In the summertime my local council adds a number of those big commercial waste bins around the local park, which is a popular picnicking and barbecue location. You are never far from one of these and they have plenty of capacity so they are well used and you never see much litter.

The council were caught out by the good weather coming early this time so only the normal small waste bins, which are inadequate on a normal day, were available. Not really surprising then that as soon as they were filled up people first piled litter around them then stopped bothering altogether so the park was littered with rubbish this time.

Idiots.

Act like animals, be treated like animals.

I hate litter! It's disgusting and - it's contagious, almost, in that a dirty littered place will not motivate people to take their own litter home.

BUT - there are so few bins in this country. I lived in Germany for a while, and every single lamppost has a (small) bin on it. And they are emptied every single day!

Here, on my 10 minutes walk to work, I pass ONE bin. I can see how people are out of the practice of 'binning' litter - there are none. Quicker to just throw it on the ground than look for a bin 10 minutes away.

If bins were more plentiful, there is NO excuse to throw it on the ground.

(*It's the same with the people who 'flocked' to the beaches last year and used other peoples' gardens/the dunes/the sea to do their business - the toilets were closed! Locked. Barricaded. What are they supposed to do?

Give them the facilities, and they will be used. They won't and can't if they are NOT THERE!)

@DumplingsAndStew

Idiots.

Act like animals, be treated like animals.

Also - be treated like animals (without facilities) and they like act like animals.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

Oh well they shouldn’t have closed everything and kept people penned in like animals/ treat people like animals and this is what you get!

Except animals don't behave like this, do they? How about taking personal responsibility?

If there isn’t an available bin you take your rubbish home. There is never any excuse for dropping litter. Why should Councils have you use their limited funds to clear up after people.

@AaronPurr

the alternative isn't that people don't see each other, that isn't realistic, it's that they socialise indoors and in private gardens (which much more easily turns into indoors).

I have family in Nottingham and they've said exactly the same.

I also have family in Nottingham, and of course it's shit. But the people to blame are the selfish idiots who are trashing the Parks and making them unsafe for the rest of us.

@thereisonlyoneofme

Every time Ive come back from a foreign holiday you always knew you were back in England because of the filthy streets

My late mother was astonished by the complete absence of dog shit in Germany!

I think it varies though. I haven't been to Paris or Amsterdam for a good few years, but recall them both as being pretty grotty. Bruges, on the other hand, was incredibly clean. Even within the same country it varies, I found Dublin pretty filthy, but Galway immaculate.

I'm ashamed of the state of the streets in Brighton, the nearest big town to me. It is utterly filthy and squalid in the city centre. (Well, it was pre-Covid, I haven't been there for well over a year now).

BUT - there are so few bins in this country. I lived in Germany for a while, and every single lamppost has a (small) bin on it. And they are emptied every single day!

You should visit Japan where there are NO litter bins. And guess what? People all take their litter home - the streets are spotless. It isn't about bins, it's about irresponsible, selfish litterers.

If you can carry heavy cans of beer etc to the park, you can carry light empty cans home too.

Lots of bins were taken away during the IRA's bombing campaign in the 1980s, and perhaps never reinstated.

There's never an excuse for dropping litter, though. Take it home with you.

It's not a lack of bins that's the problem, you can take the rubbish home with you. It's a lack of respect for the area and expecting someone to clean up after you. I'm glad they'll close parks if people don't stop littering, maybe they'll start to understand to clear up after themselves. Only disgusting people litter, you gotta be pretty scummy to leave your rubbish on the floor expecting someone else to clean it.

@breadcheeseandpickle

police closed them

That's what happens when people break the law, i.e. littering, drunkeness etc.

If the bin is full or not there, you take home what you brought in. Full bins are not a cause of littering skanky entitled first world types are. And all these types have parents...

Some of the comments here really do show the issue

“Goverment should do more”

“Schools should do more”

“We need more bins”

Etc etc. Always got to be someone else to blame rather than taking personal responsibility. If I take something out then it is my responsibility to ensure the rubbish gets either to a bin or taken home with me afterwards.

I'm pretty sure I saw on breakfast news that they were reopening them. The closure was an emergency measure to deal with an emergency situation - would you really have wanted to be there among the out of control feral atmosphere anyway?

People scoff and the 'damage of lockdown' but this is another side to it, it's not all depression and anxiety - it's also loss of social restraint and norms and crazy feral 'letting loose'...

I drove over the moors (Yorkshire to Lancashire) and couldn't believe the amount of litter. Never seen it so bad.

There were certainly people out enjoying themselves in parks around Bradford over the last few days. I thought lockdown had ended.

Also, supermarkets. Lancs and Yorks. Masks are on, but worn under the chin. Because that's really effective.

How about instead of sending out wardens to fine people they use the increase in council tax to clear the bins more promptly, doesn’t take a genius to figure out this wk the parks would be heaving.

In areas where large sections have been turned into student HMOs, with students not paying council tax, raising council tax is a common tactic to deal with the increase in mess; however, it comes across as punishing residents for the council and University's choices in handling the issues.

In the areas being discussed, there have been repeated council tax increases and even closure of local facilities with more closures being pushed through though fought against by residents at the same time the council is viewed to bend over backwards for the Universities and issues with students largely ignored.

@lorca, the lack of bins is down to cost. Twenty years of cuts to council budgets have left councils with barely enough money to meet their statutory duties. The lion's share of spending is in schools, allocated under a formula, and can't be used for other purposes. The other "big budget" service is adult social care, an area where costs rise inexorably as the population ages. Council housing income is ringfenced and can't be used for other purposes.

Once you've factored in things like waste disposal, which is hard to cut because of the rising cost of landfill and shortage of alternatives, planning and environmental health, which councils have to provide, that leaves things like street cleaning and park maintenance very vulnerable to cuts, ditto libraries and leisure centres.

They're non-statutory, to all intents and purposes, as no minimum level of provision is specified, so that's where councils have to make savings.

Ours were closed in Lockdown 1 but have been open since last June and never closed again.
Assumed it was the same everywhere. We are in East Anglia

@lorca

Also - be treated like animals (without facilities) and they like act like animals.

What facilities? 1) there were bins, and 2) if you can't use a bin for whatever reason, take your rubbish home with you.