Britain is just one big landfill shithole

[Pinkradiolady]

Been out visiting relatives....I am actually shocked just how bad the litter is. Its bloody everywhere, frankly it's depressing. Where is our Pride? The motorways and A roads are so bad. Along with the absolutely shocking driving standards.

WTAF?

There are so many reasons.

Yes, upbringing. I work in a school. So many kids just drop sweet and crisp wrappings and when you challenge them, claim it's not theirs and walk off. You see teachers pick up litter, but it's a rare occasion when a child picks something up to throw it in the bin voluntarily.

Lack of money, especially around fly tipping. When your council, as ours does, has a collection fee upwards of £40 per item and you're already counting pennies, then it's easy to see why broken furniture ends up dumped on the roadside.

Overflowing public bins. The few that exist are always full and litter easily blows out of them and gets caught in hedges and kerbs.

Overworked bin collectors on strict deadlines. Our road always has more litter on it on the day of bin collections, especially recycling. Between flimsy bags and bits just falling out while the bins are wheeled across the road, lots of bits collect on the roadside.

Lack of enforcement. In aforementioned countries, you see police and enforcemen officers everywhere. You cannot enforce on the spot fines when your police force re so cut to the bone they can't even attend burglaries.

Lack of time and energy. My front garden currently has some litter in it, blown here by the last winds. My back garden has some brought in by the birds. I have yet to pick it all up (I did some that was in easy reach). Yes, it doesn't take long, but when I leave the house at 7am and come home at 6pm in the dark with my mind on making dinner, tidying up from breakfast and getting laundry done before working more and then collapsing into bed myself, I don't want to expend more energy on picking up litter only to find some more in my gardens three days later. So it waits until I'm fed up enough.

Lack of community and rise of individualism. You know why Japan has barely any litter despite a lack of public bins? Because people are brought up in a culture of considering your effect on others before your own needs and wants. You cannot do that in a country where culture revolves around individual needs, with adjustments made for just about everyone in some way. I wouldn't say one is better than the other, because both culture extremes have their issues, but it certainly doesn't help when you need to form a society that looks out for their environments.

I don't know the answer, because an effective change would require a massive cultural shift in attitudes, money and work patterns.

I just do not understand why people seem happy to live like this.

Not many are happy to live like this.

Some don't care who cleans it as long as it's not them. Some think what's the point in trying to keep my front yard clean when it makes no difference in the long run. Many have no energy left to give. Many resent paying council tax and seeing little return for it when it comes to litter.

Some try and get nowhere. We have had a group of voluntary litter pickers around several months ago. They did a stellar job. Three full bin bags, clearly labelled as the result of voluntary litter picking, put on the roadside for the next bin collection. Those bin bags were ignored by bin collectors for almost 6 weeks, by which time local foxes, cats and no doubts rats had ripped some to shreds. All that effort gone to waste. Pardon the pun.

May I ask the posters who live in places like Germany how the fines are enforced. We are constantly told in this country that it costs more money to get money out of people who refuse to pay that it would be not to bother to try. I suspect the people who litter profusely just don't care and would refuse to pay the fine. We have no prison capacity to punish people like this so I wonder what the outcome would be.

We live fairly isolated in the countryside and it's even getting really bad here too. People just chuck it out of their car windows.

I was on the motorway/A roads in one of the home counties and there was heaps of it for miles.

Some of our neighbours are not the most reasonable think dope fiends with Mink visitors.
I've done my years with confrontation I now email council with issues.

@Elendel All companies that sell white goods, sofas, beds etc should take away the old one for free. As 95% of the items purchased are because they are broken/getting uncomfortable (beds and sofas) My parents had a new dishwasher last year. The cost that parents paid for retailer to take the old one away was £10. Council charges £36 for first item and £10 for additional items. Do not understand why people who spend £500+ can't pay the extra £10 to take the old item away and get recycled properly.

What is going to hurt anyone to have an empty can in their vehicle until they stop somewhere/go to destination. Some vehicles are tips themselves.

I bet they didn't record the bags on the Love Clean Streets app.

Myself and 3 others did a small pick in a very small area on last Friday - most of it was down a ditch. 42 bags and a heap of bulky stuff - mini trampoline, bike frames, the usual nitrous oxide cream charger canisters, clothes racks, box of coathangers. Drove past the road yesterday - was going food shopping and noticed about a quarter of the bulky stuff was still there. As recognised some items. A quick pull into the layby opposite, crossing the road and taken a photo saying this is from the previous Friday's pick. Logged a new report on LCS....

Shame they can't be made to do litter picking up as a punishment plus a fine.

No need to litter

@Elendel

Detentions are too much for litter dropping but when I was at school we had a system of where if you got 3 order marks you got a detention. I would class litter dropping as worthy of an order mark - or else make them litter pick the playground

Agree. Save space in prison for the violent dangerous offenders - thieves/scammers/fraudsters can clean up

Couldn't agree more but again I think the cost of making them attend is probably going to be high.

That seems to be the problem with so many of the country's ills, it costs time and money to enforce the law and so it doesn't seem to happen.

My sofa and most of my furniture came from a charity shop for way less than £500. I expect many on my road have had similar purchases, or items handed to them via freecycle or marketplace. I doubt any of those places would take them back. That only happens with large retailers, if you buy new.

I have the means to pay the council; I suspect many on my road are barely surviving as it is. My town is poor and I live on a council estate. You assume most people who dump stuff roadside can afford to buy new.

I am currently toying with the idea of a skip, but wouldn't know where to place it. Some estates aren't set up for convenient rubbish removal. All reasons why people rather dump and risk a fine (that never happens).

I once worked in a school that did have litter picking as a punishment for littering. A senior leader supervising, groups of kids going round at break, lunch and after school to pick it up. It lasted only a few months for two reasons: the kinds of children dropping litter in the first place started making a game out of collecting some and then letting it blow in the wind/ chasing each other with litter picks. And parents who complained endlessly about child labour/ health and safety. I don't know what tipped it over the edge but in the end the school had to give it all up and revert back to old school sitting in a hall in silence instead.

Its not where i live..... (village, south east commuter belt).

The bins aren’t emptied often enough (council cutbacks) and when they are full to overflowing the rubbish gets blown about in the wind.

Some councils offer free or reduced charges for residents of certain benefits. Most don’t know this information. Yet council estate has shit loads of old sofas etc

@CarlaH

Yes definitely

It's so hard to teach children respect isn't it. So much seems to be against it

I posted earlier to say I'm a Brit but live in Switzerland and it's not like that here, everything is well maintained. There are park keepers in all of the parks and I see them every day in the park keeping it clean and well kept. But I think there's a big cultural difference and I saw this not to cause offence but more of an observation. I don't see any anti social behaviour here. Or people littering. People are more conformist, appreciate of the efforts the canton go to to make it a nice place to live. I don't see dog mess in the parks - there's a separate park within the park for dog walkers. Plenty of bins and dog mess bins, free dog poo bags. There's a giant sand pit for kids and it's spotless. Nothing is broken. On public transport its spotless and I assume it's cleaned every day. But culturally the Swiss are different. It would not be in their nature to litter.

Yep. Smashed glass keeps appearing too. I just don't understand why. Surely it can't give someone pleasure to make their surroundings unsightly and unsafe. I wish there was CCTV on it and whoever is responsible is made to sweep it up.

I so wish we did this as a country. CCTV capturing car registrations too and a fine through the post.

I wish schools had some sort of hour a week or some such to teach children about littering, wildlife, their environment etc. it does all feel a bit hopeless atm. I feel so sad about the UK and where it's headed

That's a great idea,start it in infant school and build from there.
It would teach about surroundings, wildlife and hopefully empathy for others and living things creating a better way of living for future generations.