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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

229 replies

OptimismvsRealism · 24/06/2024 16:58

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.

OP posts:
Gogogo12345 · 25/06/2024 13:38

DanielGault · 24/06/2024 17:05

I'm in Ireland and they have just introduced a scheme where you get a few pence back for recycling cans/ plastic bottles etc. apparently there has actually been a marked difference in the littering since the scheme came in.

See this was commonplace with glass bottles when I was a kid

Gogogo12345 · 25/06/2024 13:39

Spirallingdownwards · 24/06/2024 16:59

Where do you live? I think London is quite clean compared to many places around Europe

Really? Been to Whitechapel or Forest Gate recently?

OhmygodDont · 25/06/2024 13:44

TipsyKoala · 25/06/2024 13:36

A lot of people leave them purposely as the grasses and wild flowers promote biodiversity. Nature should never be described as dirty or messy, it’s completely different to littering, graffiti etc. I like the verges being left alone.

Edited

Ours end up full of dog poo, litter and tyre ruts from people parking over it, despite it being a no verge parking area. Then once every 3 weeks the council come and do a bodge job cutting it leaving the cut grass all over the path and poop and cut up litter splattered everywhere.

We cut it every two weeks ish. We do live in a very green area however so there are lots of bushes, trees including fruit ones, flowers and sections deliberately left for wild flowers. As well as three allotment sites within a 20 minute walk. Though we all have enough land to grow at home anyway 😅

crackofdoom · 25/06/2024 14:23

OhmygodDont · 25/06/2024 13:44

Ours end up full of dog poo, litter and tyre ruts from people parking over it, despite it being a no verge parking area. Then once every 3 weeks the council come and do a bodge job cutting it leaving the cut grass all over the path and poop and cut up litter splattered everywhere.

We cut it every two weeks ish. We do live in a very green area however so there are lots of bushes, trees including fruit ones, flowers and sections deliberately left for wild flowers. As well as three allotment sites within a 20 minute walk. Though we all have enough land to grow at home anyway 😅

If they're cutting it every 3 weeks then they're not leaving it for nature are they? 🙄

Sounds like the council needs to be clamping down on people parking on the verge/ dog poo then, doesn't it?!

OhmygodDont · 25/06/2024 14:25

crackofdoom · 25/06/2024 14:23

If they're cutting it every 3 weeks then they're not leaving it for nature are they? 🙄

Sounds like the council needs to be clamping down on people parking on the verge/ dog poo then, doesn't it?!

Council should do a lot of things shouldn’t they 😅

I’d do the traffic warden ticketing the cars on the verge for free as a volunteer frankly 👮

crackofdoom · 25/06/2024 14:30

OhmygodDont · 25/06/2024 14:25

Council should do a lot of things shouldn’t they 😅

I’d do the traffic warden ticketing the cars on the verge for free as a volunteer frankly 👮

So would I, in our village. But it's not the flowers to blame. It's the disrespectful cunts who see no value in anything green. Plant blindness, they call it.

Sweetpea232 · 25/06/2024 14:36

Visited Richmond in Yorkshire last week and had a lovely picnic by the lovely waterfall, watched grey wagtails, dippers and kingfishers feeding and admired the beautiful scenery. Visited again today, after a few warm days and - totally trashed. Piles of litter everywhere (mainly soft drinks and alcohol packaging) and the only birds in sight the gulls pecking through the litter.

I can understand the desire to cool down by splashing around in the water overriding the birds need to feed in it - this isn’t deliberate or intended. But descending on a place because it is scenic, then leaving piles of trash behind, completely baffles and saddens me.

Backtothe80splease · 25/06/2024 14:43

Some people in this country are just absolute slobs and believe whatever mess they make doesn’t matter.
We were stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 yesterday. The guy in a van next to us opened his door and proceeded to chuck out the contents of a carry bag full of rubbish (fast food wrappers etc).

Arsehole.

Trinity65 · 25/06/2024 14:58

DanielGault · 24/06/2024 17:05

I'm in Ireland and they have just introduced a scheme where you get a few pence back for recycling cans/ plastic bottles etc. apparently there has actually been a marked difference in the littering since the scheme came in.

Great idea
This happened back in the 70s and 80s
Glass bottles then though, on the whole, but if you took them back washed up you would get a certain amount of money back per bottle.

longdistanceclaraclara · 25/06/2024 15:40

Athens is the filthiest place I've been to.

Round here in SE London we have to dodge the bottle of wee the Uber drivers chuck out. Delightful.

longdistanceclaraclara · 25/06/2024 15:42

Oh and San Francisco, that was an eye opener off the red eye from Hawaii with people shitting on the pavements.

Davros · 25/06/2024 16:49

We have just had No Mow May so many verges, roundabouts, banks etc will have been left to grow

jeaux90 · 25/06/2024 16:51

Sorry but other major cities, Milan, Barcelona are shitholes too nowadays.

SeismicSalad · 25/06/2024 16:56

OptimismvsRealism · 24/06/2024 16:58

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.

Totally agree, it’s shockingly bad. Drive along any motorway or other major road and see so much litter along the side. Disgusting. Never seen such a state elsewhere in Europe.

Anonym00se · 25/06/2024 16:59

OptimismvsRealism · 24/06/2024 17:03

Why would locals authorities in one of the richest countries on earth be worse off than southern Europe?

Because our councils are currently spending 70% of their budgets on social care. Southern Europeans value their elderly and look after them, so they’ve probably got more money to spend on cleaning their streets. They also (apart from Greece) pay higher taxes than we do. Greece pays roughly the same as us.

MaryMaryVeryContrary · 25/06/2024 17:02

Anonym00se · 25/06/2024 16:59

Because our councils are currently spending 70% of their budgets on social care. Southern Europeans value their elderly and look after them, so they’ve probably got more money to spend on cleaning their streets. They also (apart from Greece) pay higher taxes than we do. Greece pays roughly the same as us.

Elderly people in other countries are more pragmatic about aging. Here elderly people seem to move to unsuitable properties in the middle of nowhere and then become predictably isolated and unable to access any services.

Bearpawk · 25/06/2024 17:03

My home town (city but not a major one) is filthy.
Big street bin/ skip things constantly overflowing. Weeds overgrown everywhere making some pavements impossible to walk on as the council banned pesticides bur didn't have a plan B. Drug users literally shooting up in shop doorways in the high street.

It's embarrassing, when I have visitors I try and encourage them to visit the local countryside instead of city centre.

Canterbutytales · 25/06/2024 17:42

I was in Grassington today. Very nice part of North Yorkshire. As we walked along the river bank there was a large group of noisy boisterous young people, probably early to mid twenties who’d set up a makeshift camp by the riverside. Rap music blaring, cans, rubbish. Some were tomb stoning off one of the cliffs. These weren’t ‘chavs’. Some weren’t even local, possibly students, who knows. Just a total disregard for anyone else who might want to sit there peacefully and the place they were using. Don’t know what the answer is but there’s definitely a sense of entitlement and just not giving a sh*t.

Davros · 25/06/2024 20:27

@Anonym00se Because our councils are currently spending 70% of their budgets on social care. Southern Europeans value their elderly and look after them.
Rather the women are still expected to do it and may be conditioned to do so.
I've got an Italian friend and a German friend, both of whom had elderly relatives in care homes which the family had to pay for

CheerfulBunny · 25/06/2024 20:37

I walked through the pleasant park near me this morning and saw that a group had clearly had a little party with drinks and cups etc. on the grass but had just got up and left it when they'd finished. There's bins everywhere in this park! Who on earth thinks it's alright to do this??? It just makes me really angry and kind of sad.

GoneFishingToday · 25/06/2024 20:52

It really makes my blood boil the amount of rubbish at the road sides in this country (England), I used to think it was only the towns, but when I lived really rurally in Wales, we would go out for a walk, or drive down the single track lane to our home, and would nearly always come back with things like drink cans, milk bottled, polystyrene food containers from the chip shops, etc. We would always stop, pick it up, and take it home to bin, but I drew the line at used condoms left in our gateway, and used a stick to flick them in the hedgerow. Absolutely DISGUSTING!! Our motorways and dual carriageways on the whole are absolutely covered in litter, obviously some of it comes from the litter bins which aren't emptied often enough, so people put stuff beside the bin and it then gets blown all over the place.

However, I've often thought, that if there aren't sufficient funds for councils to pay for this stuff to be picked up, that people who are well enough to work, but don't, and claim benefits instead, should be made to do a few hours of litter picking a week, as a way to 'earn' their benefits. I bet a lot of these people would suddenly find a job, if that was implemented!

Sits back and waits for the REAL benefit scroungers to start spouting about how unfair this would be, slave labour, etc!

Idra · 25/06/2024 20:56

Unless you’ve been to different parts of this country and others you can’t really say this is accurate.

In the UK, I live in a county that is very lovely and well kept and work in another area where the littering is just shocking. It is easy to blame councils, but the council in the area I work actually physically pays far more than mine to combat this. I think communications around personal responsibility and enforcement is better in my county though - eg it’s rural and litter harms farm animals/ wildlife etc and there’s a lot of comms around prosecution of flytippers. Where I work the council is very reactive (eg just pays an increasing fortune to unsuccessfully clear up) without encouraging residents to resist littering.

I have travelled and lived in several countries in southern Europe and have seen the same. Areas that are kept well and areas that were not. I am guessing you didn’t visit Greece during the refuse collection strikes over recent years or travelled around Spain’s industrial heartlands?

I’ve been to beautifully kept parts of Italy, but in Naples was shocked by the rubbish. I stayed in what might be perceived as a high end hotel. A few times a day I’d watch the front door porter along with the front door porter of the neighbouring hotel, diligently sweep cigarette butts into the no man’s land between the two entrances. A couple of gusts of wind overnight and they’d all be blown back. My internal voice was screaming for a dustpan and brush to bin them. Ha. In seriousness, I hazarded a guess that like in the UK, businesses can be charged for waste so keeping it on a council no man’s land is seen as a solution.

WannabeHealthier · 25/06/2024 20:59

You clearly haven’t been to France, Italy and Spain then!!

garlictwist · 25/06/2024 21:05

I was in London the other week and thought it was spotless. I live in a northern city which is not. I also spend a lot of time in Italy which is not particularly tidy.

LindorDoubleChoc · 26/06/2024 03:48

MrsMitford3 · 24/06/2024 22:20

Was just in Prague for Bruce Springsteen ( he did not turn up) and was so so impressed by the cleanliness and the street sweepers etc.

Noticeable that there was no litter and even the river had no rubbish floating in it

Oh no! Is he alright?