To get so cross at litter

Where does this all go wrong? If small people are taught from childhood to keep their rubbish until they see a bin, or take it home, what happens to cause people to abandon this 'early training'? Alternatively if you haven't been shown this, why do you grow into an adult who moves around in society and the world and hears all the negative comments about litter, not to mention the eye watering costs of clearing up, and still manage to do what you saw today, Morgana?

I was walking along one day in town when a car slowed for the lights, and a smartly dressed woman in the passenger seat wound the window down and threw a load of used tissues out. I have also seen a family create unbelievable squalor on a lovely beach (lunch remnants and wrappers, used nappies and wipes) and then actually get up and move to another part of the beach leaving the rubbish in a heap behind them.

Weird, isn't it? Littering goes so much against the grain for most of us, yet some people do it without a second thought. Like you, Rosina, I once saw a well dressed woman emptying rubbish from her car onto the side of the road while waiting for her children to come out of school. I took out my diary and wrote down her registration number (you can tell it was a long time ago!) and she got out and picked it all up. Result!

No I don’t know why either Morgana, perhaps because they can get away with it. I guess that this may be something else that may have to be taught at school,so that future generations of children who do not get this guidance at home will at least have an example to follow.

Hate litter grr
Also fly tipping
Some time ago I was parked in front of a dustbin lorry.
As I looked in my rear view mirror before driving off, I saw one of the dustbin men throw a crisp packet out of his window.
I got out of my car and started to take down the reg number.
The perpetrator jumped down and picked up the packet.
Because he had picked it up, I did no more about it.
Just as well as my pen wasn't working

Drives me nuts - I am always coming back from a walk with bits of rubbish for the bin. They are usually the wrappings from take-aways and cartons/tins etc. We live in a beautiful place and presumably those in the car are enjoying it too - so why spoil it?

Oh, don't get me started on the bin men! I do appreciate that they work to a tight schedule and aren't well paid, not in our area anyway. But whenever we go out after they've been we end up picking up stuff they've dropped. Incidentally, what is it about baby wipes packs, do they somehow repel the mauls of the bin wagon and throw themselves onto the ground?

When someone has obviously emptied their car ashtray onto the gutter grrrrrrrrrrr.

Luckily we don't see much of it round here but I hope that one day I will have the courage, when I see someone drop litter, to pick it up and give it to them and say "I think you dropped this". Wonder if I will have that courage?

When dropping litter was first designated an offence, I noticed that it wasn't followed up by prosecutions and convictions, so it wasn't taken seriously. It needs to be sen to be enforced and the penalties need to be enough to make people think twice. As it is they can protest "I only dropped a till receipt" and consider that doesn't matter. But even a till receipt adds to the heaps.

If you wouldn't drop rubbish in your own home where you have to live with it, don't drop it in the street or on the beach, where everyone else has to live with it.

When my DD lived in Glasgow her flat was close to a Secondary school. The pupils would buy takeaways at lunchtime, sit on the steps to eat, and then leave the wrappers, paper, cartons and drinks cups either on the steps or the pavement. There was a rubbish bin on the corner! More than once my DD reported them to the school. It was a really good school too!
I went out to Knit & Natter on Wednesday, no litter. On my way home however, someone had discarded a crisp packet on the footpath. I picked it up and put it in my bin, muttering to myself as I did it.

We have a ‘greenway’ near us, a walking and cycling path linking us to the TransPennine Trail. When it first opened, it was hailed as a lovely environmental addition to the area, passing as it did through an area of woodland, with the margins planted with a variety of wild flowers. Within a relatively short time, it had become a shocking eyesore, with hardly a square yard free of litter. At one end of it is a large supermarket that sells fast food and a variety of drinks and it’s fairly obvious that most of it comes from there and is discarded by people who have eaten it along the way. These people have no pride, and no respect for their surroundings. Having said that, there is not one litter bin along its whole length, but whether they would be used if there were is a moot point. Signs warning of heavy fines for littering are also surrounded by detritus of one kind or another. If you report it to the council, they will do a clean up, but it is a King Canute exercise. It’s truly heartbreaking.

I used to be our village litter picker [it was one of several jobs I did to make ends meet!]. A litter bin was taken away from one of the car parks and, when I queried the action I was told that 'litter bins create litter' . I did once find a large quantity of cannabis in the car park, but no one seemed to be interested in it, including the police. I could no more drop litter than I could chop my arm off, so I don't understand how/why people do it.

I drive around and work outdoors and always have a black bin liners ,rubber gloves and hand sanitiser with me and pick up litter when I can ,but lately it feels relentless.And don't get me started on fly tipping !Out walking my dogs a friend and myself came across the most enormous dump of stuff, and spotted some documents all with the same name.I took photos and sent the information to the council,and they followed it up by bringing someone in for questioning and said they were hopeful of a prosecution,or at the very least a fine.That was months ago and I've yet to hear.I'd love to see fly tippers,or people who pass rubbish on for disposal with no idea where it's going named and shamed .I will speak out if I see littering and say 'would you like me to put that in a bin for you.'I've passed rubbish back into someone's car when they've chucked it out as I've walked past.Probably risky but I just feel so strongly I can't help it.Today I've driven home alongside a lovely river and could weep at the amount of litter in the verges, and streamers of shredded plastic bags festooned all over the branches of trees.Time to get tough with fines,follow the lead of the council -can't remember where -that seizes and impounds vehicles that fly tip if they can prove it, and I'd happily volunteer to spread the word in schools and to the next generation about responsible litter disposal and caring for your environment.

I'd love to see fly tippers,or people who pass rubbish on for disposal with no idea where it's going named and shamed.
I agree with you when it comes to fly tippers, but I do feel it's very unfair to penalise people who pay someone to take their rubbish to the local tip, and that person instead fly tips it. Yes, they would have "no idea where it's going", would they? Not if they'd been told it was going to the local tip. How can anyone protect themselves from these rogues? I don't know of any foolproof way of confirming that they will do as they promise. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Mamy years ag there was a bin men strike where I lived. A farmer I knew had someone's rubbish dumped in one of his fields. He found some envelopes with the offenders address on, piled everything into his tractor trailer and took it back to their property and dumped it into their front lawn!

In addition to all above, please, please keep the top on your trash bins! I see birds and rats at times getting into bins and taking out (sh**) because someone cannot be bothered to actually close the darn things.
Keep it closed up as the first step in improving where you live.

There is very little fly tipping or litter here in rural France. Think this may change as they are starting to go down the same road as UK with bin collections.
What I do see and find really obnoxious are plastic bottles full of urine thrown from lorries
(or cars ) yuk.

I have seen children happily give up their lunch hour to forage for litter in school playgrounds and playing fields, then seen those same children, now teenagers, walk down the road peeling off food wrappers and deliberately holding them up to watch them blow away in the wind.
Later, they get off the bus with fast food packaging which is stowed away in the landscaped bushes by the bus stop because their mothers won't have' that smelly stuff' in the house.
I know because I go on the regular village litter clear up where I live.

I couldn't agree more. I suspect people chuck rubbish out in the street as they think it's someone else's job to pick it up, their excuse, 'it gives the street cleaners something to do!'
I live on a main road (with a wide shared drive) near to a bus stop and a take away and we get a bit of rubbish settling by the fence. I have to go out with rubber gloves and pick it up on a regular basis.
As children Mum always told us to put rubbish in a bin or put it in a pocket and bring it home if we couldn't find one and I still do that now.

It's a shame there are not more litter bins. Have just been through large London railway stations and have had to really, really look for bin to put my empty paper cups [yes, I know, but I didn't have time to have china one...]
Litter doesn't create litter! People create it with the packaging, tissues, plastic cups, etc.! Grrrrrr. too!!!

There is a lovely old canal bridge,foot traffic only,near me and there used to be all sorts of rubbish such as lager cans,food wrappers,etc.strewn about.An elderly man who lives near the bridge now hangs up bin bags on the railings at one end and the difference is amazing-people do use them and the bridge is clear of rubbish now.
Unfortunately,there is still the odd bit of dumping on the canal banks but a team of volunteers clear this up every 2 or 3 months.
I find it so annoying that people cannot appreciate and respect the beautiful world around us.

A while ago on the walk to school I picked up a couple of booze bottles which had been thrown onto a hedge, to take them to the nearest bin some distance away...I got strange looks from several drivers as I wandered along with two small grandchildren carrying school bags & empty rum & gin bottles at 8.30am.

I agree with everyone - how lazy not to take your rubbish home or put it in a bin. I have seen rubbish dumped out of cars on to the tarmac in our local supermarket - food cartons from a nearby KFC, dirty nappies and my pet hate - emptying the ashtrays. Also the people who leave the dog poo bags on walls, pavements, grass verges, etc, rather than take it home or put it in a bin - grrr!!!

There are no bins at railway stations because of the risk of bombs. I asked a few years back.

Only morons do all this, anyone with a brain takes thier rubbish home or finds a bin. I have often wished I could take someone’s car reg and report them to the Police for chucking stuff out the window, dash cams will be good for this ! It seems petty but there is rubbish everywhere you go, on roads, in bushes, streams etc spoiling our beautiful planet.... no wonder David Attenborough is on the case !