Dirty Britain

[graduate_owner]

Well, reading all those replies doesn't cheer me up much. I can understand in some countries there may not be the facilities for dealing with waste (I'm just guessing) but there's no excuse in Britain. And when it comes to fly tipping, it just needs one person to dump something and it seems everyone else joins in. Someone dumped a freezer at the end of our road. It took less than a week and there was a collection of household white goods with it. Then the council collected the whole lot, and there's been nothing left there since - about 5 years ago.

I've read of people dumping tyres etc over hedges into farmers' fields and the farmer then becomes responsible for their disposal. There are such inconsiderate !! people about.

As has been said already, it probably won't get any better with local council cutbacks. Unless of course people change their habits - some hope.

K

 

[nev]

Well.........I have long held the view that most inhabitants of this green and pleasant isle of ours.....actually, the world really when you think about it....are simply a waste of oxygen....The levels of ignorance, stupidity, and general obnoxiousness never ceases to amaze me. This sort of thing is just one in along list of symptoms of the malaise....depressing really.

David Attenborough agrees with you.

BugBear

So do I.

It may be a bleak point of view as commented but it is more than realistic.
I hope the shiney happy people take control one day but the simple fact is until the world decides to educate or cull the worst offenders or at least stop them breeding, and punish them properly when they do offend it aint gonna get any better!
(I think I may need to up my medication :wink: )

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I read in the local paper when I was down Carmarthen that some local oink was caught dropping litter for the second time and was fined £500 =D> Should be enforced everywhere

Quite right too. Our local councillors announced with great pride that they had solved the problem with dog mess - they had voted to increase the fine from £50 to £500. The problem was, as anyone could have told them, that no one ever got fined £50, and no one has been fined £500 since then either. And still the dogs shiitt everywhere.


Nev, your meds. are fine as they are.

 

[markturner]

Thanks for the heads up on the link Roger....I have no idea how to repair it though...the address is correct.......

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for the heads up on the link Roger....I have no idea how to repair it though...the address is correct.......

It's back up. Must have been a glitch by your hosting provider.

 

[Silverbirch]

What irritates me is those people who pick up their dog mess, then deposit the bag at the side of the path, thus preserving it for posterity.
Equally irritating, and more puzzling, are the folk who hang it from bushes, as mentioned previously.

 

[mailee]

I do agree with Mark on this and also think there are too many lazy people in our country. Having said that I can see why people fly tip due to the local council tips not taking this and not taking that and you can't tip with that van or that car or you have to leave your car at the entrance and carry your rubbish up a steep ramp to the skips!! I think it would be far better if we just dumped all our rubbish on the councils doorstep instead. :lol:

 

[mseries]

Yep, it's just lazy, selfish, irresponsible people. Too many people expect someone else to tidy up for them. Councils don't make it easy but we all have a part to play in a civilised society.

even dumping our rubbish on the councils doorstep would be difficult with no suitable vehicle !!! We need better collection of irregular items. By irregular items I mean things that they won't take in the normal bins, things such as batteries, paint, oil, electricals. These are not things that the bulky collection service will take and usually too bulky to take on the bus/bike to the recycling centre. The quick and easy solution is to (have someone) dump them.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

And who do you think should pay for that service? We can have pretty much what we wish - if we pay for it.

 

[mseries]

And who do you think should pay for that service? We can have pretty much what we wish - if we pay for it.

the user of the service, through council tax or perhaps a charge per collection. They will already collect some items free of charge up to 13 times per year, why not make it more flexible and collect other items, items that they will accept in the recycling centre if you take them yourself.

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's no different in this country than the rest of the world apart the odd exception where a country has draconian laws for everything.

Singapore is nice.

I saw a rat there, once. It was washing itself.

Also, I have to say both Utah and Colorado this summer, and the Italian Lakes last year were noticeably tidier than here.

I found out why that was the case in Italy. I got up before dawn to take a panorama in the harbour at Torre del Benaco. I was there around 0545h, and there was a chap going round with a brush and wheeled rubbish bin. But even where there weren't obviously street sweepers, for example up in the mountains, it seemed clean.

I think in the national parks in the USA, people have tidiness hammered into them. We did Zion, Bryce Canyon and Arches in S. Utah, and a driveable high pass in Colorado. Although there were the truly annoying quad bikes, etc. there really wasn't any litter to speak of. It's odd given the American propensity for generating trash, which we've apparently picked up too.

E.

 

[Cottonwood]

The other side of the coin so to speak, is the bizarre rules surrounding the recycling industry. I recently was informed, in no uncertain terms I would NOT be allowed to take any timber WHATSOEVER out of the skpis at the local HWRC. I had found several 12 foot lenghts of very top quallity mouldings machined out of clean straight redowood, probaly very expensive, in perfect undamaged condition. NO you cannot take it. Why? Thats the rules. Why do they have that rule? Those are the rules..... :roll:

 

[Phil Pascoe]

'Elf & Safety - you might hurt yourself and sue the council. I sat with a trailer next to a tipper dumping 4' - 5' lengths of 10" - 12" leylandii #-o - I had two wood stoves. I know in that instance it wouldn't have gone to landfill (it'd have gone in a council workers boot), but it grated nevertheless.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Every time we have something that may be of use to someone but is of no great value, we just put it outside for a day with a "please take" notice on it. It nearly always gets taken - saves us a trip to the dump.

 

[Robbo3]

Every time we have something that may be of use to someone but is of no great value, we just put it outside for a day with a "please take" notice on it. It nearly always gets taken - saves us a trip to the dump.

Or, as the story goes ...... in America a householder put a refridgerator out on the sidewalk with a sign saying 'Free'.
Several days later it was still there so the sign was changed to $10.
Within a couple of hours it was stolen.

 

[Goulss]

I don't know if this is true elsewhere, but as soon as the school holidays start the amount of dog crap on the pavements in our village goes up! I guess no one teaches the fine art of poo bag usage to the kids.

 

[mseries]

Every time we have something that may be of use to someone but is of no great value, we just put it outside for a day with a "please take" notice on it. It nearly always gets taken - saves us a trip to the dump.

That is effectively fly tipping though, hoping someone else will clear it up !!! :lol:

Useful stuff like an old TV that works or furniture can often be arranged to be colllected by a charity, I donated a TV to British Heart Foundation recently, they came to collect it and later solid it for £45+tax back. It's rubbish like old oil or lead acid batteries or paint that is tricky for me to dispose of properly, yet so easily dumped irresponsibly.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Every time we have something that may be of use to someone but is of no great value, we just put it outside for a day with a "please take" notice on it. It nearly always gets taken - saves us a trip to the dump.

That is effectively fly tipping though, hoping someone else will clear it up !!! :lol:

Useful stuff like an old TV that works or furniture can often be arranged to be colllected by a charity, I donated a TV to British Heart Foundation recently, they came to collect it and later solid it for £45+tax back. It's rubbish like old oil or lead acid batteries or paint that is tricky for me to dispose of properly, yet so easily dumped irresponsibly.

That's why I said "for a day" and it's stuff that probably wouldn't even be worth a charity picking up. We're moving in a month and I'll undoubtedly get one of the charities to pick up a load of stuff.

 

[RossJarvis]

Hmmm. Not much litter around where I live.

One problem is that we're given so much litter now. When I was a kid you'd take a bag to the shops to buy stuff, they'd never give you one. Nothing was wrapped. If you wanted something to eat you'd go to a caff, nothing was take-away apart from fish and chips, so there were quite a few bits of newspapers lying around and they'd disintegrate in the rain. If you had some surplus furniture, you'd give it to someone, because stuff didn't seem to wear out so much. Plus, if it did you'd fix it. It's not the litterers that's the problem, it's the people who give us the litter!

 

[Paul Chapman]

When I was a kid you'd take a bag to the shops to buy stuff

Good to see the apprentice is following your example

Cheers :wink:

Paul