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?

Agreed . The uk is now a cesspit full of people that give no shits about anything, no societal responsibility at all . Even yesterday some scumbag has left 3 old baths against the gate to my field .

Apologies for the long post but these things need to be mentioned.

I am a member of my local wombles, South Leicestershire Litter Wombles. The FB page https://www.facebook.com/groups/604107836721038. In just under 6 years, we have picked up almost 200k bags on group picks, solo picks and picks with a few people. Plus probably the same weight wise with bulky items. We have done villages, bypasses, business parks, A and B roads

The problem is people need to understand. is the outside is not one great big bin! Finished your bottle of water? Why not leave it in your vehicle until you have got home/destination or stopping off somewhere - to get fuel or some shopping for that night's meal? Instead, these idiots, are winding down their windows and chucking it out.

We understand things like shrinkwrap, light bits fall off trucks due to the crosswinds. Food and drink rubbish is not acceptable.

A few things that need addressing. Better facilities for lorry and van drivers. They have their usual clients where they deliver to and able to use the toilet. But some lorry drivers say that companies that paused them allowing to use toilets during lockdowns have not reverted back to let the drivers use them. Why? This is why if you ever had the emergency need to stop off in a layby, you will see bottles full of piss - aka Drivers' Tizer. Plus bags of human poo. I suggest more companies allow delivery drivers to use their toilets.

Contractors that put down traffic cones. signs for roadworks. Many of these signs are not picked up once the roadworks/diversion/event finishes. These signs get clipped by lorries and fall down in the ditches. By the time we find them, the frames are rusted and twisted. These signs cost us money via council tax and via energy bills if the roadworks are for laying new gas pipes. If the signs were collected on completion of the roadworks, these signs can be used time and time again as most are universal - road closed ahead, diversion (esp with the movable arrow), lane closed 200m ahead etc.

Councils need to reduce or scrap the cost of deposing certain items at tips plus bulky waste collections. Also companies that sell white goods, sofas, beds should not charge for removal of the old item. I reckon there would be less fly tipping of these items if the above was applied.

The proposed deposit refund scheme where you get money back to return bottles and cans of certain beverages is now postponed for 2 years. I was in Malta last year and they had reverse vending machines. You put in your can or bottle and it scans the barcode and if accepted get 10c coupon for every one. Does not work if barcode is missing or damaged.

We cannot do a pick without picking up McDs or Red Bull cans. There must be a chemical that makes these people not to care.

Also people don't bloody care.

There is a couple in their 50s who has a fridge on top of their driveway for 7 years. You can't use covid as an excuse as it was there 2 years before.

Contact the council responsible for fly tipping and they may put CCTV there to catch them next time. They usually go back to where they've tipped before or as in some cases it's seen tipped so someone else thinks they can do the same

Nope, litter around here was just as bad in the noughties and even as far back as the 90s. There was a motorway slip road I used daily where you could recognise the items of litter from year to year. It was never tidied from decade to decade. It was only when the entire slip road was extended that there was a short time when it was litter free. Now a few years later, it's full of litter again.

What is really stupid is there are streets in our town where the council are litter picking on a daily basis, whether it "needs" it or not. A nice little job for the guys who do it who just wander around picking up the odd bit of litter. Once a week in those streets would be good enough. I don't understand why there isn't a rotation of where they go to collect litter. It's nonsensical that some roads have a daily tidy yet others are completely ignored year after year.

Round here the totters would have snapped that fridge up in days. We left a washing machine on our drive for council collection but the totters got there first.

When I came back to England for Christmas, it shocked me to see how much rubbish there was everywhere. The lanes and woods where I walk the dog were particularly bad. I know there's more fast food/ coffee outlets than ever, but I can't understand why people either don't use a bin or take their rubbish home with them.

@Auburngal

We cannot do a pick without picking up McDs or Red Bull cans. There must be a chemical that makes these people not to care.

Not surprising since they're a couple of the most popular products! In our village, we barely ever see McD's litter but that's because we're a couple of miles away from one. However, there is loads of co-op branded litter from our village co-op, i.e. sandwich cartons, co-op carrier bags, Costa cups from the co-op's Costa vending machine etc. We also have a fish & chip shop and, yes, there are fish & chip plastic boxes all over the place too!

I really don't think there's any particular "type" of person who drops litter - it seems to be more dependant on what kind of shop/fast food outlet is nearby.

I understand that is usually only available when the fly tipping is on publicly owned land, for example highway verges . The council can’t go around putting CCTV on private land.

The OP said 'Britain'. The whole if it. I'm just saying there are parts that are not "one big landfill shithole". Do you think the entirety of Britain is?

It's councils who allow rubbish to gather under bushes, in back alleys, in long grass and it gets there because the streets are never swept and cleaned. It's not usually people actually throwing litter, but it blows out of recycling bins on collection days or gets dropped by the bin men, it falls out of overflowing street bins, it gets pulled out of bin bags outside shops by animals etc.

It's not just rubbish that gets to me it's the slimy leaves, and weeds growing on every pavement, especially the backstreets. It's the sticks from trees and overgrown grass verges

Nail on the head there.

We have been to places at least 17 miles from a McDs and still found their packaging

Litters not too bad near me but I absolutely hate the blasé use of single use plastics etc and the throwaway society we live in, it’s particularly shocking at festivals

And no doubt there are places 17 miles from a Marks & Spencer where you can find a M&S sandwich wrapper, same with Booths, Costa, Starbucks, etc.

McD's are far the biggest fast food chain, so it's obvious you're going to see their litter everywhere.

If Waitrose started a chain of fast food restaurants of similar size, you'd see Waitrose litter everywhere.

@Auburngal ’s post above is interesting and talks of some of the multiple issues that need to be addressed.

I think one of the problems councils face and leading to charging decisions is the continuous increasing volume of waste. I would really like to see work done to reduce the amount of waste coming in at source. We wouldn’t need to pay so much waste management if there was less coming in to start with.

Our recycling crews regularly drop loads on the ground and just leave it. They are also supposed to take batteries. They clearly can’t be arsed to actually take them when people leave them out with the recycling (as directed by the council) and I hate finding batteries on the ground because the crew just leave them. I put mine in the main landfill bin now as I’m fed up of putting them out and them not being taken. I also followed a recycling truck last week and at least 30 pieces of recycling just flew out of the truck in a continuous stream as it went along.

we have load of people needing jobs and loads of litter everywhere. Why don’t have street clearing jobs??

There is no point in having bushes at road sides. Too noisy, dirty and polluted for wildlife to nest. All they do is to get rubbish trapped in them.

Then also have No Mow May or No Mow Summer. Where councils don’t mow and strim verges etc. This also creates more areas for rubbish to collect

Not necessarily.

Have you contacted the council about this?

The lack of cleaning out the drains, to save money is causing these floods. Councils are paying more to fix drains, road surfaces etc.

Most drains are clogged with rubbish

But they do support, for example, pollinating insects, contribute to air and water quality improvements and other ecosystem services. They don’t attract additional rubbish, but where grass verges are close mown the mowing gangs have to pick up the rubbish before they can cut. And when you say bushes shouldn’t be alongside roads are you thinking that hedges should be removed as well?

I think that’s a very high price to pay when there are alternative solutions to apply first.

Clogged drains are not ‘causing floods’. That’s nonsense. I agree that we used to be better at these sorts of maintenance works but the existing water management infrastructure is not at all able to cope with the volumes of surface run off and patterns of storm events we get now. Again, something that needs dealing with way before the water is getting to highway drains.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8256l20l0o#:~:text=At%20the%20head%20of%20beautiful,as%20the%20Arrochar%20litter%20sink.

Huge roundabouts on depressing as hell, so much of the litter seems seems to gather there