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?

I think there is definitely a selfish/ not taught issue affecting the younger generation.

We have huge issues with rubbish in my block of flats. Rent here is expensive. Most who live here work in professional jobs, mostly in the City.

Trying to get people to dispose of their recycling properly is incredibly difficult. Loads of households get food boxes (think gusto, hello fresh etc) and get masses of online shopping so there are lots and lots of big cardboard boxes arriving daily.

Trying to get people to break them down flat so we can fit more stuff into the bin is an ongoing battle. We have a porter who started out super patient and understanding but is now completely infuriated as supposedly intelligent people struggle to comprehend that one intact cardboard box takes up more space than one flat one and when there is a limited amount of bin space for 40 odd flats this matters.

They will also pile rubbish up on top of the bin. This is a huge issue as the bin collectors won't move the bin if the lid isn't shut. The recyling bins are at the front of our bin room (and due to relative sizes we can't change this) so if they are deemed unloveable then none of the other household waste bins get emptied either. So we have to pay for a private contractor to come out to take the rubbish away. The costs of this goes onto the already substantial service charge (full time portering in central london isn't cheap).

The management company now issue fines as the rule following owners are totally and utterly sick of subsidising the flats (mostly non resident landlords) who can't follow simple instructions about what to do with rubbish.

There are posters up about what to do galore, and advice about what to do if the bins are full. The response to the fines though has been for people to spend time peeling the delivery labels off their boxes (so they can't be identified when they dump them) rather than flatten them.

I find it mind boggling especially as there is a public access recycling point <3 mins walk away with loads of bins. I've pretty much given up using ours and walk all my stuff round there (boxes flattened!)

On the odd occasion I've tackled anyone about it they claim not to have seen the notices, or have no experience of bin collectors being militant and not taking rubbish away. Which given the frequent threads on here I find incredible - did their parents totally shelter them? Did they never experience this at university when living in rented accommodation?

I was well aware when I still lived in my parents house in a remote city that if the bin lid wasn't shut the bin wouldn't get collected.

Red Bull drinkers must have a low mentality. As I litter pick and we cannot do a litter pick without picking Red Bull cans.

I’m sure that Red Bull and McDs have ingredients in them that dulls their brains especially any self awareness parts too.

People need to understand that the outside isn’t one great big bin.

Finished that bottle of Coke? Leave it in your vehicle and take it to a bin when get home, your destination etc.

Because they aren't being fined 1,000 quid. If they were, they wouldn't do it.

My group of litter pickers believe that couriers and other workers that drive company vehicles (utilities etc) are to blame for the rubbish.

They don’t have their own vehicle. They get given a van to drive around doing their job, with no or very little time for breaks. They have to return the vehicle back to the depot in a clean condition. So they buy food and drink based on where they have been working around. They toss the empty food and drink packaging out on the roads.

Their employers need to issue a rubbish bag to put their rubbish in. At the end of the shift back at the depot, put the bag of rubbish in a bin there

It baffles me too. My children would never litter, they just wouldn’t. It’s absolutely grim.

I will cheerfully admit I’d be happy that anyone who drops litter on purpose just drops dead on the spot. The world would be a better place. Because those are the shit people. ☺️
Am also a volunteer litter picker. it can’t be compared to the 70s and 80s because people then didn’t have so much junk food/vapes/whips/ takeaway drinks to cause the litter.
I work near an airport and the road is clogged with cab drivers who keep their cars immaculate and just drop their shit out of the windows. Bottles of piss too.

Until we get on top of cigarette litter we won't crack "big" litter.

I've been litter picking for eight years and cigarette litter is by far away the worst. And yes, I do call people out for doing it "excuse me, your cigarette litter just missed the bin!" . Sometimes they pick it up sometimes they snort at me and I scoop it up in a tissue and call them a lazy knob. (I can run quite fast and always wear trainers just in case).

Same mentality as the arseholes who let their dog shite in the middle of the pavement right in front of the school gates and then walk away and leave it for 250 kids to walk through 😑

I hate it here.

I was at a beach festival in Southern France last week on a gorgeous sandy beach encircled by tne Med and a wild lagoon. I was standing by sign in French, English and Spanish that explained cigarette butts should not be dropped on the beach due to fire risk and pollution it causes and there was a sand bin next to it for that purpose. I watched loads of people stand there smoking and simply drop their fag ends on the sand.

It was very dispiriting.

Not only that but you can take your litter home with you and recycle it. I often do that. All you need is a bag to put it in.

We went to the playground this morning and it was full of takeaway rubbish from the cafe nextdoor. There are loads of bins and I can't believe people can't be bothered to clear up after themselves. Ditto their children. I ended up picking it all up and putting it in the bin as I hate seeing my child playing surrounded by rubbish. I've done this a few times. Why don't people care about where they live or looking after it? It makes me so mad.

There's nothing new about littering, sadly. My mum once took a neighbour's DDs, my DB and me out for a walk in the woods with a picnic. I would have been about 6 or 7, my DB 9 or 10, neighbours's DD similar in age. This was around 50 years ago. One of neighbour's DDs dropped a wrapper on the ground, quite deliberately. My mum had to say, "Pick that back up; we don't drop litter!"
She got looked at like she had two heads. Littering was obviously normal to her.

DH and I were watching an episode of "Scene" on the BBC Archive YT channel the other day, from 1974, again, litter and graffiti everywhere. It's a depressingly old problem.

We don't have a huge litter problem locally, but staying with my DSis in a Midlands town where we walk our dogs around a pocket-sized park. Most dry evenings it's full of drinking schools of men who live in HMOs. They leave litter around every bench. Perhaps every bench needs a bin at each end?

A family moved in across the road from us and their two children would come out into their front garden with sweets or ice cream and throw the wrappers on the floor. I was walking past one day when they threw ice lolly wrappers into the footpath and I told them to pick them up. They looked shocked but they did. From then on I got daggers from their mum. The same mum who put leaflets through everyone's door in the road about a litter pick event at a local beauty spot. Some people's minds are unfathomable.

Oh yes, me I guess. I don’t really think about it, and haven’t spoken to my children about it. I don’t bring litter home because we struggle MASSIVELY with the black bin only being emptied fortnightly, quite often I have to leave a black bag by the public bin down the road too.

I’m french so interesting to hear you think we’re all the same! 🇫🇷

Most of it seems to be people throwing stuff out of cars . They just can’t be bothered keeping it in the car until they get home . It’s disgusting and lazy and slobby and ruins the look of the countryside .

Boo hoo. Ours is emptied every three weeks. We still manage not to leave our crap on the ground when we're out and about.

That's pathetic. Just how much litter would you be taking home that you can't cope with it?

For goodness sake stop littering and teach your children to have some respect for their surroundings too

People litter in our garden. They chuck empty coffee cups, cans and bottles over the fence as they walk past. However this morning I've found 6 of those cardboard air fresheners that you hang from your rear view mirror. Which means people who park along my fence are doing the littering. The only people who park there are 3 of my neighbours.

Ah, but they can drive away from the crap in their immaculate, liiter free cars and leave it for some other sap to deal with. Sorted! 👍

I don’t suppose anyone on here is going to admit to being a thoroughly anti-social chav - since that is the sort of person who drops litter and teaches their children by example that it’s fine to do so.

And I make no apologies for using the C-word.

You would think that 'individuals' wouldn't walk around up to their ankles in litter either though.

Totally agree about van drivers and taxi drivers too.

I'm part of a litter picking group and we can tell when the school holidays are on by the litter dropped. During term time all the local routes to school are scattered with sweet wrappers, crisp packets, cans and plastic bottles. During the holidays the same routes are almost litter free. The school litter has got so much worse lately that I wonder if it's some kind of trend that some kids have taken on.

I am in Austria at the moment and it is soooo clean and tidy, they really take pride in their country. Even the litter bins are not overflowing as in the UK. People generally take their rubbish home with them and recycle. It's a pleasure to see and makes you realise how grubby and dirty the UK is with litter everywhere.

The worst incident I saw was a few years ago on a gorgeous big sandy beach, school summer holidays, lovely sunny day.

A big family, three generations, with kids 0-10, brought down a picnic and then just got up and walked away, leaving everything - food wrappers, glass and plastic bottles, dirty nappies, everything! People told them to clean up after themselves and they shrugged and said the tide was coming in and would clean the beach 😡

We picked everything up and put it in our kayak to stop it floating away, and thankfully the RNLI lifeguards allowed us to put it in the back of their truck because it was a long walk off the beach.

I’m still 😮 at their brazenness. This was a British family btw. On a British beach.

A few months ago my friend was returning to the car with DP which was parked on the road. She noticed the driver in the car parked behind theirs was eating a portion of chips. Noticed that he was gathering up the papers and saw the window about a third down

She had the sixth sense of him chucking the tray and papers through the window. She jumped to by the window as he was about to throw out the chips packaging. She pushed the chips back into his car. She didn’t look back and jumped into the car and DP drove up