Who taught their offspring it’s ok to litter?

[Nutmuncher]

The amount of litter I see on streets and roads every single day is just astounding, in fact it’s mind blowing and I’m left wondering how so many parents (of adults not just children) failed to instill the basic fundamental of you don’t ever litter, that it’s shameful, lazy, dangerous to wildlife and makes our environment look terrible.

How low does their self awareness have to be in order to think it’s ok I’ll throw it out of the window if you’re drinking from a plastic bottle on the roads? How entitled does one have to be to leave their dogs poo bag on a footpath? What mentality thinks I know I’ll just leave this pile of McDonalds packaging under the car then… drive off?

If you are are litter thrower please explain your thinking because I’m desperate to understand what went so catastrophically wrong in your development that you think it’s acceptable to do?

Excellent! So proud of you for doing this 😄

I am part of a voluntary litter picking group in my area.
Every time I go out, I always get congratulated by people for it, and I think "well, its not exactly hard, so why aren't you doing it as well?". Even though it shouldn't happen, I still come away feeling satisfied about playing my part in remedying an eyesore.

(I also get very irritated when local councillors don their obligatory hi vis and use it as an excuse for self-congratulatory publicity)

I go for a walk most lunchtimes at work. I walk past a small section of bamboo and noticed a full carrier bag chucked in there one day. This was a few months ago, now there is about ten carrier bags in there. I think once a place has litter, certain people then think it’s okay to add to it.

I also go down a bridleway. About two weeks ago ten sofas had been dumped at the end, it’s a lane that just goes to a farm so ideal for flytippers. The council have removed the sofas and then two days ago there’s now a huge pile of wood in the same place. People have no respect for our beautiful countryside

Our council recently did a survey about litter and whether there should be more volunteer litter picks and if I wanted to be part of one. I replied that there should be more education about littering and fines actually enforced for littering and dog mess.

I’m in my 50s and the road I live on is really terrible for rubbish. I pick rubbish out of my front garden every week.

One set of opposite neighbours, sane age as me, do litter picking etc with child in the cubs. we live on a nice estate and they have a lovely home, mines the tattier one. Sounds ok but in reality they are one of the culprits of the litter. If anything blows out of their bins they just leave it there including pieces of metal and car batteries and he tips chemicals from his cars down the drain in the street.

The rubbish I picked up from my drive this week was from them as it was all packaging from bedding plants that they had planted two days before.

as well as that there’s the general yobs spitting, swearing and dropping rubbish in the road or out of car windows. And the bins don’t get emptied often enough so it blows out of them too. So a big mixture.

Then you also have the people who actively litter and encourage others to do so.

balloon/lantern releases.

it’s just littering.

There are many people in UK who were never taught not to litter. Some come from deprived UK backgrounds. Some come from countries where dumping your trash on the public road is considered the norm.

Schools need to engage more on this. The amount of litter dropped every morning by children and their parents en route to my local schools is just unbelievable. If you say anything you are either a Karen or a racist.

Additionally there is a problem with bin men doing a sloppy job, foxes and cats opening bin bags left outside but not in a bin, seagulls and magpies foraging through bins.

And some councils have closed too many dumps,made it difficult or expensive to arrange special collections from homesand consistently fail to fine people for dumping and littering.

Good on you. I hate littering and i too have posted discarded litter back through car windows. I was in town when a very well dressed lady was walking towards me eating a chocolate bar, she shoved the last piece in her mouth and threw the wrapper on the floor, me being me called out " oh no lady, not having that, get it picked up now" other pedestrians stopped and watched as the very red shamed faced lady picked up her litter. I bet she never did it again.
I would love to see the fine being raised to £500.

I love waterfalls and we are on holiday in Scotland at the moment and seen quite a few. So many of these beautiful spots have been ruined by people leaving padlocks or bits of string or ribbon attached to rails or viewing platforms. They are left there by lovers I think as a symbol of their enduring relationship but really they are just litter.

Drives me mad. I get particularly annoyed by the ‘do know better’ teens and young people who are happy to march for whoever’s rights to gain woke points, but have no consideration for others in their everyday lives.

You see the disregard or outright contempt for cleaners, retail staff, waiting staff. Someone else will have to sort out their mess. God forbid that they actually have to tidy up their own mess or think of others in a non-performative/ no social media likes context.

They aren’t taught it, they are copying it.

It drives me mad and I’ve always insisted to ds that we leave things tidy wherever we go, including places like the cinema and theatre where I’m always shocked by the mess people leave behind.

I get this from my dad who once witnessed some teenage girls throwing large quantities of Chinese take away out of their [parked] car into the road around them.
he was on his way into the theatre but couldn’t stop thinking about it so in the interval he came out, picked up the discarded food and put it all over their car.
naughty I suppose but it’s always made me chuckle!!

I live near an airport so lots of taxi drivers hanging around. They will park up on residential streets and country roads alike and toss takeaway wrappers and coffee cups out of their windows and drive off. We see it all the time and they absolutely don’t give a shit. I don’t think it makes a difference whether they are local or have just come for a fare, there seems to be an inability to just go and find a bin. I am so socially conditioned to not do this it never fails to shock/ anger me

You are not wrong. I have always said to any children in my care, if we all drop our rubbish there would be no space to walk in.
I think it’s teenagers and adults.
My area was always clean and tidy growing up, neighbours etc. it’s a fight against a brick wall.
I walked to the nearest shopping centre yesterday about 2 miles, piles and piles of rubbish everywhere, one bus stop had pizza boxes, empty drinks, it’s absolutely disgusting.
Everywhere full of fag butts, papers.
We need a huge hard hitting social media campaign to try to educate these manky people.
If it wasn’t for the bottle return scheme it’d be worse again.
Filthy human beings.

This, sadly.

Two parents, one of who treats me with contempt. Sadly one child has picked up this attitude.

Yes. Or when you walk up a path on a hill and there’s a big bag of fast food rubbish someone has just walked off and left. I don’t understand.

Bournemouth beach after a sunny day is astonishing. Not just one particular demographic. Everyone. Some of it is then washed away/blown into the sea, or pecked at by seagulls. I bet half the groups of middle class kids we see would say they care about the environment. Fine in theory, but not in reality.

It was drilled into us with the 'keep Britain tidy' campaign and we taught our kids the same.
We need another campaign but apparently it will never happen.
People really do believe rubbish magically disappears!!

People have no sense of civic pride. And trash their own environment.
There is an arrogance about it. Almost as if taking care of it properly demeans them in some way.
No bins or if they are, are not collected and emptied. Which doesn’t help.
Some people aren’t very bright and / or have never been taught to be bothered.
But mainly, it is a mindset. For some almost an entitlement. When Glastonbury ends and everyone leaves rubbish everywhere. If other people do, will I look odd if I don’t do the same ?
When there is any big occasion and ditto. But they all I suspect, care about the environment. Hypocrites. Each and every one.

When the late Queen was crowned I suspect there wasn’t litter left behind.

I hate it too. There is no excuse for it. Nothing to do with how well off you are. I wish it could be shamed. It is like the person is sticking two fingers up at everyone else. This place is not just theirs. We all live in it.
And you are right. Go abroad and places are often pristine. Where people want to live in clean lovely looking places. With people employed to make sure they are kept that way.

Really bad in the NE. Absolute shit hole here. Especially when the schools have had their lunch breaks.

It’s because there is a sense these days, that you do what is easiest for you. It pervades everything. People rush to get on to buses and trains, without waiting for others to disembark. People throw litter so they don’t have to carry it to the nearest bin. It’s true that often bins aren’t emptied enough, so it doesn’t matter.

People walk three abreast on the pavement so others have to walk in the road. Cars park wherever they like, so others are inconvenienced. Putting hazard flashers on means you can park on double yellow lines or on someone’s driveway.

Dogs bark, incessantly, dog poo is left on pavements and verges.

It’s someone else’s responsibility apparently. We’ve lost the belief that we should look out for one another. It’s everyone for themselves now and we are the poorer for it.

Unfortunately some parents DO teach their kids to litter, certainly knew someone growing up who always threw rubbish wherever she felt like as her mum had told her she would be putting someone (presumably street cleaner) out of work.

I saw a family get up from a table in Burgerking. There was 2 women and about 6 children, the table and floor was littered with wrappers, dropped food, empty drinks. I thought they couldn’t leave that crap as they packed up the children. They had the audacity to push the chairs back in area the piles of rubbish.
The staff arrived to clear up, it didn’t take a feather out of them.
I would be mortified to leave any place like that. Staff aren’t personal slaves.
I gave them a passive aggressive death stare x 3.

And MN perpetuates this. Every thread is met with comments about not challenging anyone because we don’t know what they’re going through or prioritising ourselves over everyone and everything else. Basic human decency has gone out the window. Sometimes, prioritising ourselves is the right call. Often, considering other people is the decent and right thing to do.

I’ve been saying for years that we need to bring back the ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ campaign. That messaging was everywhere when I was a kid, on signs, even in food wrappers, why on earth did they stop it?! I made a long journey last week and was shocked at the miles and miles of rubbish at the sides of the roads. I live in a city and had a walk along the river the other day and there was an area where people had been sliding bags of rubbish, an old mattress and a fridge down into the water, it’s so depressing to see!! We need to
bring back a public campaign asap. Perhaps we could start a petition to get it discussed in parliament?