I know it's littering but does it really count?

[Acc0untant]

Often take an apple or banana on my dog walk and when I'm done I'll throw the peel or core in the bushes, brambles, whatever.

My mum was gobsmacked and said I shouldn't do it, that it's littering. Am I unreasonable?

Why is that a problem though? Loads of apples fall off apple trees all the time and just lie and rot or get eaten by birds and animals. Same with berries, plums, damsons etc. It's what happens naturally with wild fruit trees.

It is still classed as litter.

And what's with people dropping fag butts, gross

Why would banana peel not be OK, I discard my peelings under my rose bushes without any issues so far? They do break down, although I do seperate the peel.

Bury the banana skin. They are a natural fertiliser and put Potassium and Phosphorus into the soil. I keep mine to put in my house plant pots. My Aloe Vera and Spider plants are bigger than the ones you see growing naturally across Spain etc.

More plastic. Just what we need.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2006) states: ‘Litter is best defined as something which is improperly discarded by members of the public in an area. It includes sweet wrappers, drinks containers, cigarette ends, gum, apple cores, fast food packaging, till receipts, small bags … ’

I always eat apple cores.

My neighbour’s apple tree drops inedible windfalls into my lawn, and they are gone within days. Hate catching semi-decomposed ones in the strimmer!

So I chuck apple cores into the hedge, but banana or orange peel goes home in my lunch box.

I would feed the apple core to my dog and take the banana peel to a bin.

My dog will snaffle the banana peel and then be sick at 3am 🤦‍♂️

Apple core is fine; it will rot and/or get eaten very quickly. But obviously chuck it well into the bushes where people can't see it, rather than throwing it on the path. One thing about litter is that people are more likely to drop litter if they can see that other people have, so if people can actually that some drops apple cores, it makes them more like to drop other types of litter than aren't, unlikely your apple core, edible/biodegradable.

Banana skins and orange peel don't really get eaten and can take ages to break down so I would take those home.

I usually chuck my cores tbh I have not yet managed to get a Granny Smith tree to grow anywhere on my walking route much to my disappointment. I don’t chuck anything else.

You can get biodegradable/compostable poo bags, like the ones the council provides for food waste caddies.

I was always told banana skin was great for soil and plants, but I'll have a look into whether it's bad for wildlife.

People seem divided with the apples though. We have an apple tree in the garden and I agree it didn't seem any different to naturally dropping fruit. The birds, hedgehogs and squirrels are always coming for the ones that drop.

But no, I'll not be bagging it. I'd rather carry it all the way home than waste more plastic.

I’d chuck fruit in an appropriate place of greenery and wildlife etc but not in a hedge in a city or near a house. A forgotten banana peel of mine decomposed in my car door pocket pretty quickly!

Litter Wombles don’t pick up fruit cores, peels etc as they rot.

Huh? They decompose very quickly

I wouldn’t chuck a banana peel, someone might slip on it

Had the same issue in a laptop bag once!

Banana skins (unburied, just chucked) take two years to degrade. The John Muir association did a campaign about it years ago because hikers and hillwalkers were dropping them in the Scottish mountains and it was causing a big issue.

I see what you did there.

How about banana skin in poo bag ? No added plastic.

it is good for the soil
mumsnet isn't the best place to check these things because everyone is a bloody eejit on here.
Of course it's not littering, if your banana skin take 6 weeks to breakdown in a Bush, is that not better than never breaking down naturally in landfill.

Citrus peel isn't good for English soil, but bananas are fine and good!

I also litter pick, am involved in a litter picking (and other community improving things) group and I've started a green business (albeit very new) so I have a lot of banana skin in the game too and I say drop the cores and peel!
If it can be home composted it's fine !