I live in a wonderful city. I am grateful that there is a huge Royal Park at the end of the road.
In the summer I loved to take an early morning stroll in the park and often headed to the Round Pond, which is man made and very popular with swans and ducks.
I was stunned by the number of plastic carrier bags that have been thrown into the pond after people have given bread to the wildfowl.
Where do people think these bags will go?
I take them out and put them in one of the many waste baskets that circle the pond, baskets that seem to be visible to only me.
When I go to the local shops, I pass a small area of land that has shrubs, flowers and bushes.
You won't be surprised to hear that people throw trash onto this mini public 'garden', even though there is a waste basket close by.
I pay local taxes that pays for the gardeners to look after this area and the street sweepers to clean up the trash.
I also pick up the trash when I pass it, bottles, coffee cups, cigarette packets and fast food wrappers. Recently I picked up a large plastic syringe filled with what looked like a milk mixture. That scared me at first..what was I picking up ? Was I putting my own health at risk by this indiscriminate picking up of rubbish?
Note to self---wash your hands the moment you get in...and maybe even have some of that anticeptic hand gel in my bag? and take extra care as to what I am picking up.
This is a great exercise in learning not to judge others for their action /non-action.
This is just to do with me and what contribution I can be to the planet today.
What contribution can you be to our planet today
Tigress
Hi Tigress
What you said is great because rubbish seems to be infilterating our landscape gradually. I live in countryside and on my walks even on very quiet country roads/lanes I find wrappers, cans, bottles, sandwich packegings etc on the grass bank. Sometimes I and my husband take a bag and pick all we see and thats that.
It is just something we do for our own joy and satisfaction.
So nice to hear of your lack of judgement. Being non-judgemental is the greatest personal blessing because there is only one Self in infinite guises.
I feel exactly the same -BUT my 3 1/2 year old daughter now wants to put everything in the rubbish bins & there's a lot of stuff I don't want her to touch 🙁
Also-there's a college near us & the rubbish just dumped at lunchtime is unbelievable/dangerous. When I complained about 2 years ago they sent out Community Wardens which was great - now they just have a guy sort of tidying up afterwards-so you're expected to just avoid all th cr**p/BROKEN GLASS for about 2 hours!!!
I popped out to go to the shops for a few things.
It's raining and I had 2 bags on the way home.
I picked up a crisp pkt, a red bull can, a fag pkt and a card.
I felt eccentric, but the plant kingdom said thank you
tigress
Tigress
I'm from Australia and have lived here in the UK for 15 years. From my very first day of arriving here I was horrified at how dirty it is. I just was not used to the street litter, the dog mess, the bin bags, the filthy public toilets. Australian cities are very clean. Sure, you also get litter and lazy people and drunk people who urinate behind bus shelters... but it's a small minority.
I have no idea what can be done about it, and why it is a problem here and not in other countries. No idea at all. I wouldn't have a clue how you teach people to not litter. Where to start??
Ava x
Oh you've picked a subject dear to my heart! I HATE to see litter and rubbish. It actually hurts my soul to see (sorry to be so melodramatic but that's how it feels). India is so much worse than UK though - give a child a sweet and it will drop the wrapper straight on the floor - but this in your own (or their own) living room!!! When I rented a house all the local kids knew not to drop any litter in the street outside my house (they dropped it in front of next door who didn't care.) You learn not to see it and that's what I had to force myself to do...and I go on blanking it out here because where I live there is SOOOO much I couldn't begin to pick it up. Plus it's very yucky.
I don't know how to change people's behaviour...once long ago when I was waiting for my son to come out of primary school, a high school kid who was waiting for his little brother finished a can of coke and put the empty can between the railings of the park we were waiting outside. I said 'Oy, please don't leave that there. You're setting a bad example to the little ones. Take it away with you.' And he refused. He was all of 13 and he just refused. In the end I took it away with me and put it in a bin. It's horrible. But what to do?
We live opposite a primary school, one day in the summer there were 3 ladies (I use that word loosely) sitting on a area of grass outside the school gates. Children duly came out of school and sat with their mothers and had a lovely picnic. Later I saw them get up and walk away leaving the remains of their picnic, empty crisp packets, can's and plastic bottles. Unfortunately I couldn't get to them before they disappeared or I'd of given them a piece of my mind but saying that normally I get the 'F' off word so wonder is it worth it.
What is this world coming too, I always use a rubbish bin if I can find one if not it goes into my bag until I get home.
Cis
I will continue to pick up the rubbbish when I see it on that little patch of land.
in the big scheme of things, it is a tiny act, but I think that patch of land is happier for it.
I once saw something moving in the shrubs. It was too big to be a cat and did not move like a dog...then got more of a glimpse, and saw it was a fox.
It could not have a den there ..goodness knows where it actually lived.
In the spring some red and yellow tulips come into bloom..they look like an Edwardian circus when they are all out
tigress
I have been known to return people's rubbish to them when they have chucked it out of their car window into the street - I pick it up, knock on the car window and hand it back to them, saying 'This is yours, you've just dumped out of your car window - please will you take it home with you. I don't expect the rates I pay to be spent on clearing up your litter!'
They are usually so dumbfounded they hang on to it 😉
It makes me furious that people just chuck stuff out of their car windows without a thought - especially in the countryside. Our neighbours took a wheelbarrow one sunny Sunday down to the village putting in it all the garbage from the roadside on the way - it's a single-tracked country lane - and it was full by the time they had only reached half way - so hey had to do a second trip. Take-away cartons and cans seem to be the major part of it - I often take a carrierbag when walking the dogs to put rubbish in.
I've travelled to many places abroad and made a lot of comparisons with the UK on this issue but I've not seen much of England, I live in Manchester and did not realise how dirty it was until I visited a friend in Southampton years ago, there street cleaners are visible everywhere, here in Manchester there appears to be too many of them in the better areas and the areas in the city centre where all the posh shops are but none anywhere else and it always annoys me there is no happy medium, I've never understood people who litter and it dismays me to tell you that I am so not happy about the amount of times in a week people give me funny looks and whisper to each other when I put my fags out on the floor then put them in a public bin and if there is no bin I put them in my pocket until I get home, I've even known people to watch me do this and laugh......very sad.
Love
Rebecca xx
Years ago there was a big drive about not dropping litter and it did make you stop and think.
I never drop litter, I think it is paramount to a sin.
As you say others don't think the same. People will also dump large amounts of rubbish where they think it won't matter or don't care, then that becomes a general dumping ground.
Where I live the council will come and collect 3 large items a year free of charge if you notify them and leave it in your front garden but people still dump stuff.
Dog mess is another. Our little dog died over three years ago but again we always picked up her poo. Others can't be bothered and that is disgusting.
I picked up a bottle from the piece of land I have taken under my wing, and then I put it in a nearby bin- visible only to me- and someone rode his bike into the back of me, on the pavement, and shouted at me and swore and blamed me and all sorts. I told him he should not be on the pavement, he was breaking the law..but still he carried on blaming me, presumably for not having eyes in the back of my head.
Didn't know picking up later had such dangers attached.
How infuriating! Didn't he look where he was going? Hope you weren't hurt!
i remember a while back when the local council in my area where implementing on-the-spot fines for littering. well, i have never seen or heard of anyone being fined - i guess it's virtually impossible to enforce.
there are bins situated every so often in estates, i just wish people would use them more often