Lack of respect for the great outdoors

[nx4737]

I spent today around North Wales doing a bit of landscape photography and I was shocked by how we seem to have lost respect for the great outdoors, Llanberis, Pen-Y-Pass and Betws-Y-Coed all seem to currently have a litter problem, also, a lot of the picnic tables around the lone tree in Llanberis seemed to have burn marks from where people have put disposable BBQs on them.

Is this a recent thing or have I just not picked up on it until now?

 

[Nod]

If recent is the last 20 years or so, it's recent.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

I wonder if the fix for litter is to hit the companies that produce it.

Perhaps require the manufacturers of those products, which are currently sold in disposable wrappings, to change to re-usable wrappings and repay the "deposit" for the return of those wrappings. We used to do that with all sorts of drinks. When people left the bottles lying around, enterprising children would collect the bottles and take them to the nearest appropriate shop to get the deposit.

 

[Box Brownie]

Not forgetting the whole new class of "litterers"......those that poop scoop their dogs but just leave or chuck the bags away in the area!

I do wonder about the mental capacity of such litter droppers but sadly that is an insult to those folk that are affected by reduced mental capacity!

It simply beggars belief that those that litter and despoil places they visit would, I surmise, be very annoyed if folk threw their rubbish into their front gardens???? Or perhaps they are victims to that too?

 

[lindsay]

Not forgetting the whole new class of "litterers"......those that poop scoop their dogs but just leave or chuck the bags away in the area!

...or bag up the dog poo, and then leave it next to any upright thing sticking out of the ground - lamppost, telephone junction box, tree.., as if magically it will turn into a bin that will be emptied by someone.
Or the obviously too well off idiots that go camping then leave tent and all behind as they can't be arsed to pack it up.

 

[BethAtTheHug]

It's been happening for years. Everything from roadside litter to wildfires caused by disposable BBQs. What has changed is the shear amount of it everywhere, no longer concentrated in a few touristy places, I see much more litter up in the hills than I used to.

Here in Scotland we tried to set up a bottle return scheme but it was killed off by UK ministers. It wouldn't have solved the sweet wrapper, energy bar, and tissues everywhere. In some places the Co-op has stopped selling disposable BBQs at times of high fire risk, at least it's something. Hate to say it as it makes me sound old, I am, but education like all the public information films that were around when I was a kid might help.

 

[woof woof]

As per a WBMT post I made yesterday. Our CCTV caught a young woman walking past. She took the top off a bottle, emptied the contents which was a dark brown liquid (possibly chocolate milk) all over the pavement and then put the cap back on. Some just give no thought at all to what they're doing and the impact on others or the environment.

 

[zx9]

I spent today around North Wales doing a bit of landscape photography and I was shocked by how we seem to have lost respect for the great outdoors, Llanberis, Pen-Y-Pass and Betws-Y-Coed all seem to currently have a litter problem, also, a lot of the picnic tables around the lone tree in Llanberis seemed to have burn marks from where people have put disposable BBQs on them.

Is this a recent thing or have I just not picked up on it until now?

One thing that strikes me when collecting my son from Uni at Aberystwyth is the general lack of litter both in the towns and villages and by the road side.
I had assumed that the signs and potential fines were working.
Ponterwyd IMG_7625edit by Keith Hudson, on Flickr

 

[Brendan Mulachy]

burns my head out when i see it, i honestly just can not fathom what goes through the scruffy t***s heads, ive seen it in some right remote places, i always end up coming home with pockets full of rubbish, that's how i've brought my kids up too, wouldn't let them litter. i attended a RTA a couple of years back and assisted whilst the helicopter come to evac him to Glasgow, i had a bottle of water that id given to the lads girlfriend who thankfully was on her bike and not pillion, she had drank it so i put it in my pocket, one of the coppers there said just chuck it in the bushes like everyone else( there was already a car down the embankment at the same spot from a previous crash), i could not believe it

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

...one of the coppers there said just chuck it in the bushes like everyone else( there was already a car down the embankment at the same spot from a previous crash), i could not believe it

I can easily believe it.

It's "someone else's job", where the "someone else" is never actually specified...

 

[Tringa]

I too cannot understand the thinking of people who leave litter. How anyone can eat and drink and then just throw away the containers is beyond me.

It has, as said above, always happened - in the mid 1990s a mate and me went up the Ben with a couple of our children who entertained themselves by looking at the drop litter and making up stories about who would leave litter like that - but it has become much more common now.

I don't know if it is due to just more people getting out into the countryside or that a greater proportion of those visiting have no sense of responsibility.

Are children taught not to throw litter? Given the environment has a much higher profile than years ago I would have thought so. I was taught about not littering when I was at school and that was many decades ago..

Agree about the dog poo bags. The bagging up and then dropping the bag on the ground, by a post, or hanging it on a bush is even more beyond me than the litter droppers.



Dave

 

[Pixbarmy]

We live on the coast and notice that every "holiday" season is marred by the increase in litter and dog poop. There are dunes near to where we live and we daren't walk them at this time of year as you come home with brown shoes, no matter what colour they were when you set off! I challenged one dog owner who told me that it was "natural" for his dog to leave its droppings out in the wild! Some of the local hedgrerows become "poo trees" at this time of year, with the black plastic bulbs of brown flowers just waiting to "spring out" into the open! I'm not sure if it is holidaymakers, day trippers or holidaying schoolchildren, forced into dogwalking duties! Apologies for the "natural" post!

 

[kennethwfd]

We live on the coast and notice that every "holiday" season is marred by the increase in litter and dog poop. There are dunes near to where we live and we daren't walk them at this time of year as you come home with brown shoes, no matter what colour they were when you set off! I challenged one dog owner who told me that it was "natural" for his dog to leave its droppings out in the wild! Some of the local hedgrerows become "poo trees" at this time of year, with the black plastic bulbs of brown flowers just waiting to "spring out" into the open! I'm not sure if it is holidaymakers, day trippers or holidaying schoolchildren, forced into dogwalking duties! Apologies for the "natural" post!

In my neck of the woods, it isn't just dog poop, but some humans are incontinent and baby's nappy must be changed as well

Littering is nothing new

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csYLZlG74cw

 

[nx4737]

Some depressing responses here.

Something I forgot to mention in my first post, in Llandudno, the bins on the sea front were all full, so rubbing was being left on the floor around them, which to me, is just as bad as littering.

 

[Nod]

When one of the bins kept getting overfilled over weekends, the local council did the obvious thing - they removed the bin...

 

[Harriers9]

We have something ten times worse on our estate.

A resident allows (charges) people to dump their builders waste etc at the end of his garden into a floodwater gully. He's also encroached into the gully by building himself a, far from safe looking, extension.

The council have been informed but say it's not their problem. God knows if he's been spoken to about it.