To wonder why the UK is so filthy compared to other places?

[OptimismvsRealism]

Everywhere I've visited recently in Europe seems immaculate compared to my home city and other cities I visit for work etc. even the US seems better. What's going on??

Really think filth in public places is at the heart of a lot of our problems.

@OptimismvsRealism

Because we (as individuals) do not pay nearly enough in taxes to pay for what we need!

All political parties make a benefit of saying they will not put up taxes. Surely there are clever people who could work out that we who could afford it pay much more?

I live in Edinburgh...it's filthy. They had a staffing problem recently and my recycling bin wasn't emptied for 4 weeks and my bottle box was overflowing as we had had a party !!. I hardly use landfill now so that wouldn't have been so bad. I also come from Newcastle and was horrified at the city centre. So dirty. The roads in Edinburgh are atrocious for potholes.
I'm just back from Austria far far cleaner.

It's unbelievable. One of the richest cities in the UK too. I watched binmen emptying bins into lorries, letting the rubbish overflow onto the ground then drive away leaving it for the wind and seagulls.

This

It depends where you live. Up here it's lovely and clean, more so than anywhere I've been abroad. Except Singapore

We live in rural Normandy and are always stunned by the state of the motorways. And the rural roads. Near my DSis you could lose a car in some of the pot holes.

M69 between Coventry and Leicester - my god, there's more rubbish on the sides than at the tip

Disgraceful. Ashamed to be British sometimes.

Because they haven't had 14 years of the Tories bleeding the country and local councils dry.

I'm in Finland, I've seen trucks washing the roads here - drives along and sprays water down on the road to clean away all the dust and gravel.

The Councils do have plenty of money, it's what we pay our Council Tax for. They should spend it locally on cleaning and Libraries and things we can get pleasure from like parks and flower beds. They should manage our money better.

The Budgets in the UK dwarf many on the continent

Local authorities in the UK do have more responsibilities but they also spend more on optional stuff

I think we are pretty awful as a population.

Many of us:

-leave dog shit on pavement
-Chuck litter from car window

this weekend, I stepped out of my front door to walk my dog and there was a a dog shit just outside my property. I picked it up. Then my elderly mum called me and said could I help her because there was dog shit right outside her house!! I don’t know what is wrong with people.

councils also have their role in all of this - inadequate public bins/not emptied frequently enough, making litter disposal difficult with restricted tip opening times/booking needed/payments for certain items - all this contributes to someone deciding to fly tip

if we weren’t dirty pigs, our streets wouldn’t be dirty

Because so many people don’t seem to care about just dropping their rubbish everywhere, even a few meters away from bins. I can’t believe the mess beaches are left in after hot days, as pictured in newspapers, with a sea of rubbish so thick you can barely see the sand. What is wrong with them all? Badly brought up or just selfish pigs.

Immaculate overseas isn't my recent experience. Where have you been?

The UK is awful for litter, but graffiti etc is worse overseas.

And I think people overseas are actually quite bad as well for dropping litter, but they have better public services and it's all cleared up every day, whereas we're lucky if someone comes along once a week. Street cleaners only come up my street about three times a year!

They are disgusting and lazy. Not only is it unsightly, but the other issue with this is that it encourages wildlife to consume the leftovers of the discarded KFC/McDonalds packaging and potentially be obliterated by other motorists. Dirty bastards!

Agreed

It will get worse in the city where I live, our rubbish collection is going from weekly to fortnightly. We have wheely bins but these get filled up so people just put household rubbish in black plastic bags and leave them on the kerb. They don't fasten them securely so they spill open or get ripped open by foxes, cats, birds, rats or whatever. It really seems to depend on the mood of the binmen on the day as to whether the bags are taken away or not. Goodness knows what it will be like when collection becomes less frequent. A call to the council results in "we've logged your call", but no action.

Fly tipping is a big problem here and today I walked past a house where someone had cut their hedge and swept piles of twigs and leaves into the road. Of course the drains then get blocked and the road floods when there's heavy rain.

We are a dirty society - on an individual level where people think nothing about dropping litter or throwing fast food packaging out of their cars, and on a "corporate" level where councils don't clear up properly and water companies think nothing of discharging shit into rivers.

It's not all bad though - there are wonderful volunteers here who are out every weekend litter picking and doing clear ups. But they shouldn't have to.

Councils have reduced street cleaning to a minimum, removed bins from public areas and parents have stopped expecting anything from their children.
The amount of times, just in the last week, I have had to tell the local kids to please pick up their rubbish is unbelievable. Even walking home from school parents just take the rubbish off their kids and toss it over their shoulder but then are first to complain that the council don't do enough.

I went to Kos Town recently. Now that really was a shithole. Empty plastic bottles, lager cans and fag packets strewn all over the ruins.

In Paris the graffiti is cleaned away really regularly

In the UK we still have stuff from COVID up

Why do people think it’s the council’s fault that there is litter everywhere?
It’s the fault of those who throw their rubbish out of the car window, or who don’t take their rubbish home if the bin is full, or who leave their dog shit everywhere.
We all need to take responsibility for our actions

An increasingly filthy, disrespectful population and not enough funding or investment in local public services

I haven't lived in the uk for a while its the first thing that hits me on my return. The litter!!!

Agreed .

We went to Malaga earlier in the year and all noticed and commented on how spotless it was compared to the UK.

It's not just rubbish is it?
There's verges covered in weeds, some that have grown into trees, over grown grass and even in some parks the bare minimum is done to make the greens look presentable.
It makes it easier for people who just don't care to leave their mess behind if the place is already a tip.