Litter . Keep Britain Tidy ?

Bring back Petunia and Joe on the TV..Just talking about them the other day after our local beach was left in a disgusting state.

I grew up outside Glasgow in the 1950s and 60s. Both at the council school I went to first, and two different private schools, at home and at the Brownies we were taught that we should never drop litter, but carry it until we found a public waste bin.

The grown-ups constantly supervised us on outings to make sure this rule was obeyed.

My father taught us that matches used out of doors had to be broken in half after use and the ends stuck into the ground. Nothing was ever thrown out of a car window, either by us children or by our parents.

There were notices up reminding you to use public waste bins and it cost £1 in a fine ( a lot of money in the 1950s) if a policeman saw you dropping litter.

All this did help, although you did see litter in the poorer areas of Glasgow and around the railway stations.

Perhaps we need to try and reapply the attitude to litter that we grew up with.

Going off the initial point for a second but in relation to the Japanese teacher washing a child's hair (who had nits) - here (UK), it would be classed as assault. We're not even allowed to tell the parent their child's head is crawling. We can, however, send a generic 'We have an outbreak of nits in school so please check your child's head' letter which inevitably becomes screwed up in the bottom of their bookbags and remains unseen. Those people (not commenting on this post, as yet) who are derogatory about teachers not being able to stop nits in schools; we can't - and believe me, we want to. Our hands are tied (much as they are concerning Covid-19 and returning far too soon).

Sorry to say but we cant do anything because it's the way a lot of people are it proves it by the way they have behaved during the coronavirus lockdown

Very difficult to stop people coming. I live in a village and couldn't believe the amount of rubbish that had to be cleared up - hundreds of bags left by "visitors. toilets were closed so you can imagine the filth left behind. Just so people could sit by the river. Not sure about toilets being closed everywhere - perhaps more could be done about this and charges made.

I agree Gwenisgreat1 I always taught my children as soon as they understood what I was saying that litter goes in the bin or your pocket until you get home. If they dropped litter I would just tell them that if they drop it it means someone else has to pick it up. Worked to a certain point because as grown ups they don't drop litter in the street but the floor inside their cars is a different matter. Bless.

One thing that really annoys me is litter, when my daughters were young and we were out for a day, I would go home with a bag full of rubbish for my own bin, why other people can't do the same I really don't understand, taking along a carrier bag that can fit in a pocket isn't something that's hard, my girls even used to come home from school and promptly go empty their pockets of the papers from school snacks because their school bins were overflowing. x

From new Zealand.

Queueing outside Tesco’s before it opened this morning, we watched the cleaner emptying the outside litter bin, and picking up bits of rubbish including cigarette ends from the ground with a ‘grabber’.

She had hardly got back in the store before the woman behind me lit up a cigarette, and proceeded to drop it down on the ground when she had finished it.

She had arrived puffing and panting, saying how breathless she was.

I only shop there weekly, she’s always in the queue and always has a cigarette.

No, I said nothing, coward that I am.

My granddaughters’ school (infants) have a litter picking system, the children get stickers for picking up rubbish in the playground/field when it’s their class’ turn

MacCavity I should have remember those notices!!

Wasn’t there a Keep Britain Tidy day recently ? Everyone was encouraged to clean up their own patch. Let’s bring it back.
I thought the lockdown would have been a good opportunity for a cleanup . Not the reverse.

When I was a teacher we had parents complaining that the children were asked to pick up litter!

@ExD
We live in Cumbria , it's been shocking !
Went to Buttermere on Monday and also saw blackened rocks ( taken from stonewalls) to be used as bbqs , beer cans , and lots of other unmentionable s everywhere.

Since McDs drive through has been allowed to open I have seen an increase in the paper bags, cups and napkins strewn on grassy edge of the road near me. I cannot understand why folk can't take their rubbish home. Seems to becstabsard now to open the window and chuck it from the car. Making other sectors of the population clean up litter just encourages the litterlouts to carry on as someone else will clean it up.

It's so easy, set your youngsters a good example and they will soon learn to either put rubbish in the bin or take it home with them. I think a lot of the problems stem from councils not emptying rubbish bins more frequently and the amount of packaging that takeaways produce. A piece of greaseproof paper, page of a newspaper was all that was needed for fish and chips, plus a sprinkling of salt and vinegar which would be eaten at home. Now its polystyrene containers, wooden utensils and plastic ketchup sachets, plus cola bottles and cans. Funny the fish and chips used to taste so much better then, oh, the good old days!

In the USA the low risk prisoners clear the rubbish and in some countries the unemployed have to keep a specific area tidy in order to get state benefits. Unfortunately in this country we do not do this.

Worth reading (or better still, hearing if you can find it) David Sedaris on litter picking. When he lived in Sussex he became quite obsessional about it, walking miles every day with a bin bag and a pick-up stick-thing. He's very funny about it - a delight to hear/read, always.

Thanks for that. I will look it up. ?

Froglady France may be comparatively a lot less littered than some of the UK but the same can't be said for the picking up of dog crap. A couple of years ago we did a canal boat trip for a week. Often we'd moor up and go for a wander round the canal-side villages and towns and were horrified at how much dog poo there was all over the pavements. We saw hardly any people and even fewer dogs, which was even more mystifying!

I live in Lancashire and we used to have a slogan :
No Litter In Lancs Thanks .
It disappeared a while back.The streets and pavements are getting worse and Litter bins seem to be getting less and less. We've been to many countries and the majority were cleaner than the UK .Perhaps we need a Litter Minister.

It’s really sad that some people are so scruffy & leave their rubbish for someone else to clear up.I was always taught to take my rubbish home with me & my children do the same,my little grandson who is 3 wouldn’t dream of throwing rubbish down & he even wants to pick other peoples litter up & put in the bin.Where I live we have two large playing fields & recently the litter has increased dramatically.....I know it’s youngsters but why do they have to just throw bottles,cans,crisps & sweet wrappers on the ground,their parents are probably the ones who fly tip over our beautiful countryside.They should be made to pay for the damage that is done to our countryside & livestock.

I forget who said that we have become a nation of ‘browsers’, but it’s true. Years ago people had their meals, and rarely ate in between them. It wasn’t the ‘done thing’ to walk along the road with food in your hand. Now many people can’t go an hour or two without putting something in their mouths, even feeling the need to stop for coffee when out shopping.

Is it because people have more disposable income, or just that there is so much on offer now, compared to years ago?

@Rumpunch. My DD used to be SO untidy, just like yours. I was tired of going on at her. Now that she has her own house she is fanatically clean and tidy, and berates me, jokingly, for not being up to her standards.
Her daughter is following the same path, and drives her mum to distraction with her untidy tip of a room, and leaving the kitchen in a mess. When she complains to me I just tell her, “What goes around comes around.”

It smacks of a general lack of respect for other people, your environment and your Country.
We raised these last two generations so we bear a measure of responsibility. Not enough discipline, too tentative parenting.
A Mc'D's car park is a case in point... they sit in their vehicles, finish a bagged meal and toss the debris out of the window. Lazy filthy bastards...usually teens/young adults. The bin is 10 steps from their car.
Truck drivers chuck pee filled pop bottles from their cabs rather than empty it into a drain. You can see yellow bottles laying by the roadside regularly. A council workers have to pick these up??? This country and the people are a disgrace.