We need to stop the culture of "floral tributes"

[MangoMangoMango]

Just watching the news about the horrific murder of the girl in Boston. Woman being interviewed in front of a mass of tributes - flowers, teddies, balloons. At least 30 feet across, filling the pavement.

I totally get that locals who are shocked and upset by the news want to demonstrate that in some way. But flowers wrapped in plastic and helium balloons are just litter. In a few days someone will have the job of clearing it all up and binning it. Such a waste of money and resources.

We need to move the culture away from this - but into what. I'm not sure.

I do know one thing: I'd rather see a mound of decaying flowers from well-meaning strangers than see a thread about the atrocity of cellophane started on the back of my child's brutal murder by some tunnel vision poster whose emotional blinders appear to be gorilla glued.

^ It's the opposite of tunnel vision. It's about going beyond the here and now of emotion for the benefit of our children's grandchildren! Just takes a bit of common sense to think of sustainable alternatives.

My initial post or the person who said the thing you objected to? It wasn’t me you insulted but someone else. I was speaking up on their behalf because there is no need for personal insults

I haven’t read the thread past the OP but instinctively it felt like ‘wow’ - a child has been brutally murdered and you feel triggered enough by the environmental impact of the floral tributes to start a thread?

You misunderstand. It's not that the money is wasted. It's just that it could be better spent elsewhere.

Says who. If it helps the flower giver, the community deal with a shocking incident who on earth is begrudging that?

Bloody hell.
Have we all turned mawkish?

We don't need teddies at the end of a road twenty years after an event .

Like I said before... that's what burials and cremations are for, else there'd be teddies and flowers outside every other house.

How does anyone know that donations haven't also been made?!

Seconded by me. Disgraceful thread, lacking in any emotion. Thosecwho have reinforced it, well..shocking.

Wow, just wow.

Where?
It’s a few quid on a bunch of flowers.

I don't think the OP was "triggered" (which is a ridiculous expression anyway). It's reasonable to see a mountain of rotting flowers mixed in with single use plastic and think "what a pity the supportive outpouring couldn't be expressed differently".

Those of you flinging personal insults around need to reconsider your posts. You may not agree with the OP or others on the thread, but you don't need to be nasty about it.

I doubt it. Unless the family specifically asked someone to do it, I suppose - which is what happens with some flowers after funerals. But I can't imagine anyone wanting flowers from a tragedy like this and it'd obviously be wrong and pretty odd for anyone to take them if the family hadn't asked them to.

I disagree.

Death (particularly in horrible circumstances like this) isn't ordered, pretty, or considered. People want to show the nearest and dearest that their thoughts are with them, and this is a way to do it.
At the end of the day, a young child was brutally murdered, in broad daylight, by some lone psychopath, and you're worried about people spending a couple of quid on some supermarket flowers?
If the council want a quid off me to spend on clear-up in a fortnights time, they can have it, and please take it with my blessing.

In all honesty, if THIS is what you thought, when you saw the tributes to a murdered child... that says something very uncomplimentary about you.

It’s funny how most of the people who claim to have such empathy for others they get angered by the idea of changing the tribute of formal flowers are the ones throwing insults around. Yet the ones saying maybe this needs discussing because of environmental damage of plastic & other rubbish are the ones being polite. To question whether floral tributes are the best way going forwards of showing sympathy does not mean that no sympathy is felt for the bereaved families

Yeah funny how some people who claim to have so much empathy for others can look right past a child’s brutal murder and only see their death as a reason to push some pseudo-green-teddygate agenda. And the OP fucked off at 9:44am yesterday at any rate so… bun fight accomplished! She’s probably been very busy, out cleaning up all the dead teddies and floral tributes she was banging on about.

This aggressive response is exactly what I’m talking about.
No wonder OP has stopped commenting, the level of vitriol is crazy. What is a Teddy gate agenda and why would anyone have one?

Pull the other one, Twiggy. It’s got bells on.
OP pissed off because we all fell head first into their wind-up! We’re all mugs here, you do know that right?

I don’t see it as a wind up, it was a perfectly sensible subject to debate but got derailed by people insulting others rather than just expressing their point of view

Yet you see no nastiness in using a 9 year old girl's murder to speathead an environmental campaign. Think you need to take your own advice.

*spearheads

😂

I don't understand why people feel moved to leave any kinds of tributes - floral or otherwise - for people they never knew, especially celebrities and 'royals'. The mass collective 'grief' over Diana's death was a ridiculous overreaction by people who believed they somehow knew her because she was constantly in their newspapers and magazines. Sure, dying at 35 in a car crash is tragic - but it happens every day. Children and adults die in accidents or, worse, are murdered every day. Pray for them if you're religious, donate to a relevant charity but keep your flowers and teddy bears to yourselves please.