to not understand why people leave litter?

[HaveringWavering]

Pretty much every toddler is taught to put rubbish in the bin and that it is bad to drop it. They usually love doing it and are the first to tell off adults who don’t.

So where does it all go wrong? At what point in life do people forget or decide to ignore this and become the sort of disgusting pigs who leave their litter in parks, on road verges and on beaches?

If you have left your litter behind in the park, why? What goes through your head? If a bin is full, why do you dump your shit in the floor instead of taking it home?

(The only exception is festivals which have paid litter picking included in the ticket price).

I’m a volunteer litter picker (so is dh). People are just lazy and don’t want to be bothered taking litter home. And don’t get me started on dog poo bags hanging from trees!

But on the other hand it is my four year- old who is telling ME loudly that all litter must be binned (I do, he just likes to warn me in advance smile) so I find it odd that it isn’t just second nature when ingrained so early on. All teachers will teach this and all kids spend time at school in normal times. So the message must be overridden by parents who model litter- dropping.

Do you think your four year old is exhibiting an understanding of the impact of litter on the environment and a sense of probity, or just parroting a rule he's been told because, at that age, the sense of injustice is very strong, the rules very black and white and everyone he knows tells him the same thing? Do you think the behaviour would persist if he started hanging around a load of friends who drop litter?

You see the vast majority of people bag up their rubbish and then have to leave it beside full bins - where it is then attacked and scattered by seagulls

If they take the trouble to bag their rubbish, why on earth don't they just take it home with them?! Why bother to bag it up if only to dump it on the ground? Do people not understand that leaving it like that is littering?

It's middle aged people who I see littering the most. They do it because they don't care. Clearly

@HamFisted

But on the other hand it is my four year- old who is telling ME loudly that all litter must be binned (I do, he just likes to warn me in advance smile) so I find it odd that it isn’t just second nature when ingrained so early on. All teachers will teach this and all kids spend time at school in normal times. So the message must be overridden by parents who model litter- dropping.

Do you think your four year old is exhibiting an understanding of the impact of litter on the environment and a sense of probity, or just parroting a rule he's been told because, at that age, the sense of injustice is very strong, the rules very black and white and everyone he knows tells him the same thing? Do you think the behaviour would persist if he started hanging around a load of friends who drop litter?

I know what you mean but my thinking is more around how habits are formed, the sort of muscle memory thing that makes it really physically hard to just let go of a piece of litter and let it fall to the floor. The repeated action of putting things in the bin reinforced over years of that simple message given to you from a young age. Plus so where between four and teen they do also learn about the wider responsibility for the environment element.

And don’t get me started on dog poo bags hanging from trees!
@HildegardNightingale. What?!

Maybe @HaveringWavering but I don't think muscle memory is generally involved. If you've gone to the local shop, bought yourself a few things and you're eating them sat on the grass with your mates (or indeed kicking them around like a football), you don't generally need to actually drop the litter, just fail to pick it up.

A vast majority of smokers seem to believe they have the right to just throw their nub ends on the floor too!

It’s awful, I suspect alcohol has a lot to do with it, there always seems to be lots of beer bottles among the litter when it’s really bad.

I’m not sure I agree it’s acceptable at festivals though tbh! I’ve never been to one myself but surely it’s better for everyone if everyone throws their rubbish away throughout the festival? And the idiots who leave behind tents are complete dicks (unless there’s a specific scheme where they’re given to homeless etc but mostly they seem to just be destroyed)

I'm astonished that there are 6% of people here who think the OP is being unreasonable. What goes on in their minds??

If you're brought up by people who drop litter and fag ends then you see it as normal and you will do it too. You will then pass it on to your own children, and so on.

It's all down to poor parenting and a lack of thought for others around you.

Because some people are lazy scumbags.

@MadeOfStarStuff

It’s awful, I suspect alcohol has a lot to do with it, there always seems to be lots of beer bottles among the litter when it’s really bad.

I’m not sure I agree it’s acceptable at festivals though tbh! I’ve never been to one myself but surely it’s better for everyone if everyone throws their rubbish away throughout the festival? And the idiots who leave behind tents are complete dicks (unless there’s a specific scheme where they’re given to homeless etc but mostly they seem to just be destroyed)

Yes, I think that being boozed up does make people more lazy and likely to walk away leaving their mess behind. I wonder what the problem is like in the States where drinking alcohol in public outdoor spaces is often illegal and definitely less socially acceptable?

As for at festivals, what I had in mind is when you are in a big crowd and you have a plastic beer glass in your hand, you can’t go to the bin and you can’t really have a litter bag as you’re dancing etc, so I think it’s accepted that the glasses just go on the floor and then the pickers clear up the next morning.

People don't have pockets or a bag or the litter is sticky and therefore it's awkward to take it home so they just leave it on the ground. They probably reason "it's only one piece of litter; it won't really cause a problem". These same people probably look at pictures of a litter strewn park and rationalise that they were not responsible for it - they only left 1 thing. I think that's the problem. One person on their own doesn't cause this problem but too many people (as also signified by the response to Covid rule breaking as it won't matter if they just visit their mum) can't see how their actions magnify and have a greater impact when everyone does the same thing.

@lidoshuffle

I'm astonished that there are 6% of people here who think the OP is being unreasonable. What goes on in their minds??

I think they probably mean that IABU not to understand, because the simple reason is that generations of lazy selfish scumbags have passed their habits down. Which is a fair point, really.

I voted YANBU, and can’t understand people who drop litter on the floor / just leave it there after a picnic.
But:
I include leaving a bag next to a full bin as littering, for that very reason. If the bin is full you need to take it home
This I disagree with. If you do that the council will reduce bins / bin service to cut their costs while pretending the bins weren’t needed.
When I lived in Central London a few years ago there was a bin just opposite my building, one day all nearby residents were informed that the bin would be taken away as not needed (it was always full, so clearly that wasn’t the reason! not overflowing though).
Our only way of protest was to place our bagged up litter on the pavement where the bin used to be. We did that for a couple of weeks and surprise surprise the council put back a bin, but a smaller one.
We continued to place bin bags next to it when it was full. After some time they finally replaced with one the same size as before.

Conclusion: litter placed next to bins means more bins are needed! The council is not going to provide the right amount of bins if it is not visible that there aren’t enough.

Litter, rubbish & fly tipping really saddens & annoys me

I agree that some rubbish must come out of bins via the wind or animals

In some other countries, you never see any litter

I joined a FB litter page & they are regularly finding plastic litter from 1970s or earlier. It is identifiable by the logos & brands

I always take my rubbish home or place it in a bin

I don't understand why people are so lazy

@LovelyLovelyWarmCoffee

I voted YANBU, and can’t understand people who drop litter on the floor / just leave it there after a picnic. But: I include leaving a bag next to a full bin as littering, for that very reason. If the bin is full you need to take it home This I disagree with. If you do that the council will reduce bins / bin service to cut their costs while pretending the bins weren’t needed. When I lived in Central London a few years ago there was a bin just opposite my building, one day all nearby residents were informed that the bin would be taken away as not needed (it was always full, so clearly that wasn’t the reason! not overflowing though). Our only way of protest was to place our bagged up litter on the pavement where the bin used to be. We did that for a couple of weeks and surprise surprise the council put back a bin, but a smaller one. We continued to place bin bags next to it when it was full. After some time they finally replaced with one the same size as before.

Conclusion: litter placed next to bins means more bins are needed! The council is not going to provide the right amount of bins if it is not visible that there aren’t enough.

I do understand what you were trying to achieve, but the problem is that rubbish bags not in bins will be ripped open by foxes, birds and other animals and spread everywhere. There must be other ways to make your point that don’t result in spreading your refuse across the street?

Also don’t see why a bin that was always full could possibly have been designated as “not needed”? That makes no logical sense.

@HaveringWavering
I know the issue about foxes etc ripping the bags open, we were in central London so not much of an issue fortunately. But yes, it wouldn’t apply to a bin in a park.

And absolutely, no logical sense in removing the bin pretending it wasn’t needed when it was definitely well used! It must have been about cost cutting. Or maybe to make the street look tidier as it was just before the Olympics (just a theory we had at the time, probably not though).
I’m originally from Paris and when I moved here 10y ago I remember noticing how there were way less public bins.

Who the hell are they? Everyone professes to be shocked by it and never do it yet lots clearly are!

One of the most shocking scenes in Mad Men was handsome Don Draper his beautiful wife and two kids having a picnic. The wife gets up shakes all the litter onto the grass and they get into the car and drive away without a backward glance. Perfect scene to show the true nature of the family...

Every time lockdown restrictions are eased, the park by my house (a small play park in a massive field) is full of teenagers and young adults (almost exclusively men) topless, drinking, blaring music from their phones and the place is covered in litter. I'll never understand it.

When I was younger I used to get annoyed with my best friend when we ate at McDonald's and he would try to walk away, leaving his rubbish on the table. "Someone else is paid to clear it" was his shitty response. I'd end up cleaning up his stuff with mine.

@HamFisted

Teens, in my experience. Witnessed a few the other day, using a half-empty lucozade can as a football in the kiddie play area, then left it lying on the floor when they moved on. I imagine it starts there and never stops.

And you said....."Hello there, could you pop that in the bin? Thanks." No?

We live on the edge of a town on a road that leads out to the countryside. I regularly see groups of young men in little cars racing up and down at high speed (it's a 30 zone). They chuck their MacDonalds and KFC litter out of the windows as they go and all the householders along here have to clear it up.

We regularly get bags of dog poo chucked under our garden hedge too. Why bag it in a non biodegradable bag and then leave it!? Our local canalside has trees with bag after bag after bag of dog poo hung in them.

The worst I've seen is a group of four young men sat outside McDonald's with their car windows down dropping all their detritus around their car as they ate. The pile was huge. This was in full view of everyone. They just did not care.

It's just laziness and entitlement I'm afraid.