Britain is just one big landfill shithole

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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?

Lol, so funny

We have a Kwik fit garage at end of the road, it closed down and became a local tip..fridges...matresses...building rubble, within days it was a mountain...the council tip is actually only a further 50 metres along the road...the freeholders of the site have now fenced it off and the rubbish is now cleared away. We did report a local known landlord when we filmed him dumping 7 matresses at the end of the road, the council took so long to prosecute him that it didn't proceed...hopeless !!

Oft quoted in every single thread about shit areas.

Have you honestly ever lived in one? I can't imagine the local derelicts and substance users in many rough areas getting excited about litter picking!

And I can't imagine the people who are filling the place up with litter and dog shit would care to get involved either.

it's definitely a class thing, even if that feels unpalatable to many. I can't say I would fight for the so called 'underdog' anymore. They've risen to the top and shat all over it.

It's not remotely. But we have ideologically been trashing our country, any sense of national pride for some time now, it is no surprise there are many who no longer give a s* about it.

Cigarette litter is the real problem. We need to get smokers to realise (and worry) that they'll get the £75 fine for littering their used cigarettes.
I've told off a few people for it in my time and got the local community police to lurk outside offices at break times, which does seem to have cracked it where I work.

Demographically speaking, a lot of deliberately dropped litter comes from teens and young adults, and separately from people who walk around drunk with cans of monster.

If we as the nation's mum's can educate our kids so that when they reach the age of wandering around with packs of mates, they do NOT conform to this sad stereotype, we will go a long way towards helping things.

Even getting our kids to be less reliant on bottled drinks is a huge help.

One thing myself and other Wombles in my group want - getting rid of charity donation bins. See these in car parks.

They are just a magnet for fly tipping. Doubt if anything put into those bins sees inside a charity shop. As lowlifes put things in the bins that contaminate contents, chuck urine on them or set contents on fire etc.

Donate the stuff directly to charity shops and you will see your donations on sale

No, policing and enforcement of the rules is the answer. The people who fly tip or leave litter need to be prosecuted. They'll just continue to do it unless they're actually punished. Councils, police and PCSOs need to up their game and stop ignoring it.

Well said, parents have a huge responsibility to actually "parent" and be good role models to encourage their kids to behave respectfully as they grow up, and litter is just one aspect. Unfortunately, far too many parents can't be arsed and are poor role models.

Yes! The village next to ours have some glass bins and a clothes/shoes bin and it's become a dumping place. It's frequently overflowing, but people leave crap they don't want or that is broken. There is currently a kids scooter, a football goal (bent and broken) and boxes filled with magazines, which the rain have turned to mush. There is a dump 10ish miles away. It's just laziness.

I don’t know what the answer to this is, I suppose there are multiple lines of attack.

It would certainly be great if councils, police etc did more but we know they don’t have the resources. The social care budgets at councils are sucking in money from everywhere, police similarly have big capacity issues and have to prioritise, never mind that the whole justice system that sits around and behind them is also on its knees.

This is obviously a national issue so I would like to see some joined up thinking and my main hope is that this could be significantly helped if we started at the beginning. One of the things I would like to see is end-to-end costing on this. For example what if companies were charged a tax on packaging based on disposal costs (volume and type). They would either have to pass the extra cost onto the consumer - fine by me, you buy it, you pay for the disposal - or they would make changes to reduce the types and volumes of packaging. This could extend to the goods themselves, the costs of disposal applied right at the start. Could very quickly be a tax that doesn’t actually raise much money but saves the public purse at the other end by not having to deal with so much litter and disposal costs.

Spot on @murdomunro

Litter may not seem a big issue for some, but it is incredibly depressing to see so much..and I think then, this don't care attitude leaks into everything else.

I am talking normal littering - fly tipping is a whole other level and obviously requires a great deal of work by councils to enforce.

But normal littering is v hard to enforce. In addition we had a lot of litter recently after the storms - but it was likely litter taken by the wind from blown over recycling bins etc - our monthly litter pick normally gets about 7 bags - but this time it was 21! Nothing a pcso could have done. It still needed collecting and communities and people within those communities can do a lot to help themselves.

I have noticed my asthma and hay fever as got worse since councils are cutting back the cutting back of verges. As before the vegetation etc was cut back before flowers and seedheads were able to form. Now the flowers and seedheads are formed and more pollen in the air.

Plus the overgrown verges cause issues like broken kerbstones and damaged road surfaces. My friend was driving down an A road and moved to the side to let an ambulance through. She hit the side of her tyre with a broken kerbstone. She wasn't able to see the broken kerbstone due to the overgrown verges. £70 down the swanny.

My tip is only a mile away. Get that still.

What particularly irks me is litter (often cans/bottles) dropped at my local bus stop - where there’s a bin literally a couple of paces away! WTF is the matter with people? Bone idle, or just utterly stupid? Both?
I usually pick it up and get some very funny looks - who’s this mad old bag picking up rubbish….

Dog walker outside our house yesterday morning, dog craps on pavement, owner puts crap in bag and then chucks the bag on the pavement and walks off.

Where is the sense in that?

Bin men have just been here and have dropped rubbish in the road and left it. It's windy, so it'll be all over the place, especially in people's gardens.

People just couldn't give a toss these days.

Actually, I do think Brexit (and Austerity as another poster mentioned) have something to do with this. There is less money for public services and far less sense of community. Austerity made it blatantly obvious that we are NOT “all in this together” and Brexit widened a big rift in society. We are very much a divided nation.

I'm not sure that because of brexit people are dropping litter. We seem to have short memories in this country.

People drop litter because they haven't been educated not to.

M rt ftttt

Bbvt

You alright there Ruby, should we call a dr?

I just don't get it why people don't pick up a piece of rubbish that has blown into their driveway. Most people this happens are fit, healthy and no issues with bending.

My litter pickers arrived...today I did a small litter pick. A small piece of Britain ever so slightly cleaner.

Almost every single household in my street will step round litter literally at their gate rather than pick it up and bin it. It takes no effort to scoop it up with a handful of tissue (we're not talking broken glass or dog poop here). But no, muggins here is the one picking it up.

I do PassAgg discretely fling smokers cigarette litter back onto their gardens though.

Politely, you are an idiot and an arse. Do you have no civic pride? No wish to live in decent clean surroundings? No preference for your children to grow up with respect for themselves and the neighours.