to find the roadside litter and dumping an absolute disgrace ...

What annoys me is that every time I turn the radio on I hear endless public health warnings about covid. They should realise there is a huge problem with litter and dumping and put public warnings on about that just as often.

This makes me really sad.

I regularly have to litter puck my own hedge as I live on a rat run. I find cigarette boxes, takeaway bags, crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, coke cans, beer and spirit bottles, the odd poo bag and wing mirror. I found a laptop once. A traffic cone too. About a million Cafe Nero/Starbucks cups.

A very smart residential road near me is regularly strewn with newspapers in the morning - someone has obviously read it and tossed it out of the car. Happens about once a fortnight. Someone also regularly dumps full black bin bags on the entry roundabout near the motorway.

I think we need more (fire proof) bins with lids (due to the wind), more litter picking and more collections. On the 5th, it'll be nearly three weeks since My household rubbish bin will have been emptied - and I live alone - what does everyone else do? My local tip/recycling centre is hardly ever open and bans entry an hour before closing.
We also need to fine people for littering by using the traffic cameras.

I also wish lorry drivers would cover full skips and rubbish containers.

I could go on and on.

We seem to have lost pride in our country and ourselves.

Out and about on country roads today, and much much worse even as before Christmas. Bags full of Christmas wrapping, etc, left all over the place in beautiful countryside. A real shameful disgrace.

We are in Yorkshire and the coyntry roads around the village we live in have become disgracefully littered and some people think its acceptable to fly tip along beautiful country lanes.

It infuriates me.

Sarnia

My neighbour and I litter pick regularly in our local area. The lane we live on is used as a rat run by motorists who do not want to be snarled up in traffic on the major road which runs parallel. We find all sorts thrown from vehicles. The ones who make me despair the most are those who carefully pack all their takeaway cartons etc into the brown paper bag it came in then throw that out onto the verge. Why go one step further and take the bag home? Don't get me started on lazy dog walkers who leave bulging little plastic bags hanging from branches. I live in hope of catching one of them in the act one day.

We have the lazy dog walker tree decorators in our village as well. Also the take away packaging they must buy in the town and just have finished when they get to us. In my mothers village it was milk bottles pushed under peoples hedges and the odd spirit bottle.

Bristol has taken street art to heart. There are uplifting, political and beautiful artworks everywhere. Galleries hold exhibitions, there are street art festivals and world famous artists create work which brings money and energy to the streets of the poorest areas. A lot of Bristolians are very proud of the street art culture. It's not for everyone, but there is a lot of good in it.

visitbristol.co.uk/things-to-do/street-art

Kali2

Graffiti is a totally different thing. And it just depends - some graffiti is really well done, and in the bleak suburbs, say of East Berlin- they truly add interest and colour to the miles and miles of concrete.

If someone painted a nice picture (preferably a view with trees and greenery) this would give a rural feel to concrete areas and I'd love it. But the usual gaudy scribble you see is an offence to my eyes!

Urmstongran

Years ago we were all reminded to ‘Keep Britain Tidy’.
Time to bring it back. I wish littering could be viewed as the antisocial behaviour it is.

Are any countries litter/graffiti free nowadays though?

I remarked how clean the roadsides were in New Zealand when we were touring there pre-Covid. I'm not sure about the big cities.

Beswitched

What really galls me are the people walking home at night eating takeaways and then casually flinging the greasy wrappings into someone's garden. They don't even know or care if an elderly or disabled person lives there and has to go out and pick up their rubbish.
It's scummy behaviour from scummy people.

Many years ago DH challenged a couple of youths who just threw their takeaway rubbish on the pavement, pointing out there was a litter bin just a couple of yards away. They swore at him and went off laughing.
I doubt people would challenge litter louts now in case they had a knife.

Graffiti is a totally different thing. And it just depends - some graffiti is really well done, and in the bleak suburbs, say of East Berlin- they truly add interest and colour to the miles and miles of concrete.

Beswitched

What really galls me are the people walking home at night eating takeaways and then casually flinging the greasy wrappings into someone's garden. They don't even know or care if an elderly or disabled person lives there and has to go out and pick up their rubbish.
It's scummy behaviour from scummy people.

My front door opens directly on to the street so I only have a planter outside my door. I can guarantee that almost every weekend, someone will use it as a litter bin for their take-away containers, drinks cans and cigarette butts.

But it's not a new problem. Many, many years ago now when I lived in Richmond, Surrey, a new eatery chain ('Wendy's' I think) opened and the amount of rubbish along the main street was so bad that the council actually banned it from serving take-way food.

There's a certain type of individual that does this kind of thing, and they are not going to change their behaviour because basically they are simply anti-social louts who don't give a damn - so I'd be happy to see them prevented from buying their take-aways. Unfortunately, as ever, that would also punish those who act responsibly...

What really galls me are the people walking home at night eating takeaways and then casually flinging the greasy wrappings into someone's garden. They don't even know or care if an elderly or disabled person lives there and has to go out and pick up their rubbish.
It's scummy behaviour from scummy people.

With my husband not able to drive due to a medical condition and me being a non-driver, I have become acutely aware of how difficult it is for people without private transport to dispose of unwanted items. We can afford the fees charged by the local council for removing such items, but I can well imagine there are plenty who cannot afford it. No surprise then that fly-tipping is such a problem.

It's similar in Germany, in my experience much tidier than Britain with regards to litter. But has much more graffiti than Britain which personally I find not pleasant. Perhaps that's just me though.

Urmstongran

Years ago we were all reminded to ‘Keep Britain Tidy’.
Time to bring it back. I wish littering could be viewed as the antisocial behaviour it is.

Are any countries litter/graffiti free nowadays though?

Norway - at least out of town - is pretty clean and clear of rubbish.

But they do provide plenty of containers along the way for disposal... in fact, you can go into any super-market car park and dump your litter as well.

And it gets carted away regularly.

I think many Norwegians are (rightly) proud of their environment and, as lots of them are 'out-door' types, they tend to keep their litter confined.

Naturally, there are those who just don't bother... they're in every country.

I agree Doodledog. I'm sure they could do one free collection for everyone.

Coastpath You should campaign for proper bins with lids. We had boxes but had bins delivered a couple of years ago here. I don't understand why anyone thought boxes were a good idea....ever! They can either have green or brown bins for recycling, or what they did here was just put blue lids onto black bins. Still, it works I suppose.

We have to pay £40 for each item that won’t fit in the bin with lid closed.

Kate1949

Our Council will do one free pick up of bulky items per year, fridges, sofas etc but only for the over 60s.

It's good that they do one, I suppose - at least people can plan for it - but it's daft to restrict it to the over-60s.

Our Council will do one free pick up of bulky items per year, fridges, sofas etc but only for the over 60s.

It's crazy Chestnut. We have open recycling bins here in our exposed seaside town on the edge of open moorland. In my previous town (also coastal and windy) I campaigned for nets to put over the bins and they were provided at a small cost to the user. Here - not even that.

Coastpath presumably the recycling you mention is from open boxes which is ridiculous. I didn't realise councils still used them. I thought they all had the sense to use proper recycling bins because it's obvious stuff will blow away from open boxes.

I'm part of a litter picking group and we find that a major source of litter in our windy seaside town is stuff blown from recycling boxes.

Another thing we find frequently in laybys is bottles of wee, presumably left by drivers taken short or overnighting campers/lorry drivers. Pretty grim.

I agree that the council should collect items for free as well as provide free access to tips for everyone. They do not seem to realise that if they charge then there will be people who simply won't pay the fee.

As for glass, our council collects all the recycling in one bin, paper, plastics and glass. Weird I know, because surely the glass gets broken and mixed up with everything else, but they seem to manage. Where I lived before they didn't collect the glass and I had to walk it to a recycling bin, but luckily there were some fairly close.

The councils are responsible for rubbish and recycling, so they need to make it easy and totally free, otherwise some people just won't co-operate.

I agree, Chestnut, and would add that I think that there should also be free collections of the sort of things that get fly-tipped (mattresses, fridges etc). Our council charges £40 per large item, which could well be beyond the budget for people on low incomes, and those without cars lose out, as ever. I dare say that nobody wants the local tip at the bottom of their garden, but they are always well out of town, so inaccessible to the car-free, even for smaller items that could be carried.

It's not just for large items - even our bottle bank is too far for the unfit to walk to, and is not on the way to anywhere, so gets no passers by. People have to make a special trip with bags of bottles and other glass, as the council don't have a designated bin or collection for glass.

As regards general littering, I agree that it is unpleasant and anti-social. They should bring back public information films in ad breaks and on social media. I do think that people could be persuaded to see it as unacceptable if they were encouraged to think about it from a young age.