To think that the litter on our roads has got to ridiculous levels?

[inigomontoyahwillcox]

Maybe it's just where I live (NW Essex - M11, A11 are my usual major roads) but the amount of litter on the motorways, dual carriageways, and A roads is just crazy! It feels like we're living in a country with minimal infrastructure. It became very clear yesterday during the high winds not only how bloody awful it looks, but also dangerous it is in high winds (we had some litter hit our windshield).

I understand it's hard to collect litter from verges and central reservations due to the traffic, but we seemed to manage in the past (and other countries seem to deal with it) - or has littering/dumping gotten out of control? Where does it all come from anyway? Are people just throwing it out of their windows?!

What McDonald's etc could do is spend more on promoting safe disposal of their packaging rather than the huge amount spent promoting their spicy burgers that seem to pop up on TV every 15 minutes. Stamp cup lids and packing with Use a bin or Take home.If it just makes a small number think twice.Today in an hours dog walk I've filled 2 carrier bags.14 cans .9 bottles.5 cartons.2 polystyrene boxes and crisp packets and 7 cups (3 Greg's,2 Mcds and 2 subway)Fuming.

Our gov needs to mandate this, as they've done in France:

www.thecooldown.com/green-business/mcdonalds-france-reusable-packaging-happy-meals/

It's not a new problem, as such. But I agree that it is getting worse.

Even a decade ago (at the time, we'd recently moved from a busy London street to a quiet-ish naice neighbourhood in another city) I was surprised to observe the phenomenon of non-local people driving from a takeaway outlet that itself was non-local, parking up on one of the local quiet streets, eating in the car, placing the bag of empty containers on the grass verge and driving off.

Similar timescale, I noticed that every time there was a nice sunny summer's day, any big parks near the universities would be filled with groups of picnicking students. A lovely sight, except that without fail the next day there would be piles of litter just left where each group had been. I suppose the excuse would have been that the bins were full, and somehow the empty containers weighed too much to be carried away, whilst they'd been perfectly light enough to be carried there whilst still full.

These days, different neighbourhood, different city - but I still see frequent examples of both these things. Plus also school kids/university students eating/drinking while walking along and just chucking empties behind them. And the verges definitely have more litter than they used to. So it's a combination of worse public behaviour and fewer council clean-up resources.

Maybe we need to get back to the idea of not eating in the street

It’s not that bad here overall although some bad spots, same places that don’t care. But agree lockdown didn’t help, so many disposable masks just thrown on the ground

Really glad you started this thread, I thought it was just me, I don’t live in England any more, and when I come to the U.K., I fly into Gatwick, and get the train to London, and the rubbish that’s along all the embankments is really depressing, it feels insurmountably trashed. I really noticed it this week, maybe it was the lack of greenery that made the rubbish seem worse.

In a slight ray of hope, I watched a YouTube video about an area outside Paris that was beautified, it went from oppressively miserable, to beautiful in 20 years under a mayor who made “making beautiful” the priority. He believed that if a place was pretty, people would be happier and the whole town would improve in every way, and he was right, he employed traditionalist architects who renovated the miserable 60’s and 70’s blocks into pretty French style buildings that people actually want to live in.

Unfortunately lots of post war architecture is grim, beauty hasn’t been a consideration, and if a place is grim, people don’t look after it and it just gets worse. People imho don’t want stark decaying brutalist buildings, we need clear policy, and investment in improving private buildings, public infrastructure, and every council should prioritise landscaping with proper biodiverse ecosystems. The French video gave me hope, but modern architects have a hell of a lot to answer for imho.

It makes me both angry and sad.
A few weeks ago I was behind a car and first a polystyrene box came out of the passenger window onto the road, then at the traffic lights the car ashtray was emptied out of the window, leaving a pile of cig butts on the road.
All picked up perfectly, along with the car and it's registration plate on my dashcam, which I then forwarded to the local police.
Absolutely no excuse for littering and even less excuse when in a vehicle!
The scenes from the beaches in the summer is sickening with the amount of rubbish left behind.

It was a recent trip to one of our National Parks that made me angry enough to join the debate and want to do more.Surrounded by natural beauty-not brutalist ,grim architecture. What's the excuse for lobbing your litter there.Although I can see the argument for improving built surroundings and giving people a reason to be proud of their immediate environment. However we have some glorious and varied countryside and idiots are trashing it.

Singapore is a densely populated place and has strict littering laws.

4. Littering
Singapore has strict laws on littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. Repeat offenders will be fined up to S$2,000 and subject to Corrective Work Order (CWO). The CWO requires litterbugs to spend a few hours cleaning a public place, for example, picking up litter in a park. They are made to wear bright jackets, and sometimes, the local media are invited to cover the public spectacle.

Also for spitting:

5. Spitting
To maintain a hygienic environment, spitting in the public compounds is prohibited. The penalty for non-compliance is a fine of up to S$1,000 for a first offence. The fine for a second offence is up to S$2,000 and for the third and subsequent offences the fine is up to S$5,000.

and chewing gum is illegal:

Import, sale and possession of chewing gum are banned

Our lane is pretty--it comes down a steep, partly wooded hill and down past a copse. People still throw all kinds of disgusting things out of their car windows, including excrement in plastic bags and dirty nappies and wipes. If the locals don't pick them up it's a real job to get Biffa out for ages.

Very much agree with this. Carelessness breeds carelessness.

Because there are many litter louts who just toss rubbish when they finish with it and very few are prepared to tackle these offenders about their antisocial behaviour for fear of reprisals.
There is very little integrity and pride left in the population now. Everyone is out for themselves with little regard for how they affect others.

We don't have a problem with rats/foxes getting into the rubbish since we got special bins for food waste that have a handle that locks them closed.

And as our recycling scheme includes all tins, yogurt pots, the plastic trays from meat/fish or ready meals, and damn near everything else, the amount of ordinary rubbish in bags is tiny.

It's the only council service that really works well, but it does work well. Maybe other councils should come here and see how they do it.

Where I am in Hampshire there is no joined up-ness anyway. The county council operates the tips. But the district councils have to deal with flytipping. So the county council is more than happy to reduce access to the tips because it doesn't have to deal with the consequences.

That's the same in all areas that still have 2-tier local government: the districts/boroughs have statutory responsibility for collecting the rubbish, the counties for disposing of it.

It's just one of the reasons why two-tier local government is bollocks, and expensive. I used to work for a London borough, but moved to a county council, and the waste and duplication caused by having different councils responsible for different functions really shocked me.

Same with my council. Three wheelie bins. Most of our rubbish goes in the recycling bin which collected fortnightly with the green bin for garden refuse. Small electrical items can be left on top of the blue bin. The tip is open from morning until dusk and is free except for traders. But still I had to report fly tipping last weekend - it looked like fairground stuff, tyres and car parts.

Wouldnt that suck up wildlife too? Birds, small mammals, insects?

There's a theme here:

Cars.

People chucking rubbish out of cars.

Cars insulate you from the world, your own little mobile living room. It makes people stop caring about the world outstanding of the car. They bought the car to insulate themselves from it after all.

We need less cars.

Lol sorry but this is ridiculous, and what about people on the beach or in parks? They are not in their cars then yet still manage to leave their litter behind.

Maybe the answer is we need less people instead going by your logic.

Exactly

It's just ignorant people who don't care car or no car

I'm not saying that only people in cars drop litter, but chucking out of your car window is definitely a theme here.

Driving everywhere disconnects you from the world around you.

We drove on the A12 the other weekend. As we started to get close to Witham the verges looked like the contents of a skip had literally been upturned and left to blow all over the verges. Mainly plastic bags, plastic wrapping, cups, bottles and just general plastic detritus. It looked bloody awful. I do notice it is often the same areas of road which seem to attract it. This area in particular had a load of shrubs so everything was tangled up in the vegetation and was "trapped".

What is weird is that despite all the litter, I have rarely seen anyone obviously chucking crap larger than a cigarette out their window. I have obviously seen people throwing the odd bit of rubbish, but given the sheer mountains of crap everywhere you would think you would see atleast 1 occurrence every 15 miles or so. However, what we do regularly see is pick up trucks, lorries, work vans etc with unsecured loads and pieces of plastic, packaging and other crap flying out everywhere. Dangerous and littering....needs to be clamped down on.

I drive the same A-road regularly, there are plenty of lay-bys with bins. But the bins are hardly ever emptied, so even when motorists do try to put litter in the bin then next windy day, it's all over the place.

I have said this a couple of times quite recently to couple of friends I know, a comments along the lines, makes you wonder what they do with out council tax monies funding

I've travelled to some other countries & there is zero litter

The amount of litter in the UK is unacceptable. However, I have seen magpies pulling litter out of bins & foxes too..

I have also noticed some beauty spots where no rubbish bins are provided & people are expected to take their rubbish home & this does not always happen

I live near the A1 in Yorkshire and the litter situation is disgusting. Every time we travel that way it seems worse and nothing is ever done.
We live in a dead end with just a few houses and have problems with idiots using it as a dumping ground for their rubbish, a lot of people seem to stop to have their lunch here and dump their rubbish and even use it as a toilet 🤢.