Environmental poverty

[Tinkerbell]

Generations of people have now grown up with littered areas and it is the norm for them.

1. Someone I know who is employed as a cleaner says he does not notice the rubbish in his own garden!

2. Our local comprehensive had a corridor in the school devoted to the subject of litter and its social and environmental consequences - their own land periphery illustrates that the message is not getting through.

3. Someone made the point recently in our local paper that when living in an area which relies on tourism a greater effort should be made to clear up. I agree, but it should be in every area and not just one which attracts tourists.

Tinkerbell

[vole-woman]

I really do think it's a matter of those of us who care making a nuisance of ourselves.

I phoned up my local secondary school one day last year and asked them to do something about the litter on the verges, and the place was clear by the end of the day. My council is also pretty responsive to requests to litter-pick. If I see a person, adult or child, drop some litter, I make a big show of picking it up myself and putting it in a bin - that takes the wind out of their sails, whereas if you ask them to sort it themselves, they can refuse and/or get nasty.

If all of us who hate litter keep chipping away, I'm convinced it will make a difference.

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Originally Posted by vole-woman

If all of us who hate litter keep chipping away, I'm convinced it will make a difference.

I'm with you 100% Maybe it's just a water vole thing

[Meta menardi]

When we lived in Cumbria, I often carried an empty rucksack and picked up rubbish. Sorry to say it, but the darn thing was always full of feed bags for sheep and black silage plastic! Cross-compliance means that the subsidies on farming are linked to not having plastic all over the place, but how well is this monitored?

[Seajay]

Reading through this thread you can identify just about every problem with rubbish you see in this country. It has become a very serious problem and is quite frankly depressing, to myself and I suspect, everyone else, even those who throw it!
The solution? Public education through the media, parenting and schools. Stop people throwing their rubbish to the ground and clean up the rubbish already there. Provide adequate numbers of bins and ensure the council empties them sufficiently.
Report filthy areas and ensure your council responds (most do and quickly).
The law. Don't fine offenders - get them picking up rubbish for a 100 hours or so Community Service. Cat D offenders - get them out to problem areas and give something back to the community by cleaning them up.
And us! If you see rubbish pick it up and put it in the nearest bin which hopefully exists nearby. We are good at moaning but do we do anything? I hold my hands up and say no, I just moan (unless it's in the vicinity of my house or fishing line down by the river or lake). Do we petition our MPs or ring the council when we see an eyesore? Probably not. What about organising groups of people through your local paper on clean up afternoons? These are all possible.
Finally a lot of rubbish comes from industry, off lorries, from factories, trains,
supermarkets, retail outlets and unwanted junk mail and packaging. Don't forget that washed up on our shores - not necessarily from our own country. That's an area for the government and the EEC.

That's my rant finished. I'm going back to sleep.

Colin