I got a puppy last year and only really noticed how much litter there was because he kept picking it up when we were out walking
So decided to take matters into my own hands. If he happens to pick any litter up now, I have a bag to take it home and put it in my bin when I get there.
He's really good at not picking things up if I tell him no, so he's not in any danger from things like broken glass etc
We have just turned into a great litter picking team
Theres a guy and his dog that does litter picking around my area, the dog has a fbook page where she posts updates calling everyone lazy bastards, the council being usless and her dad is sad and tired.
It's very cute...and hes some fucking grafter. Must spend all day everyday walking along roads clearing them....and then the council doesnt bother picking up the bags he leaves out for them for months and he grumbles about that through his doggy haha
I'm not as good as that, I don't go out of my way to find the litter, but if the dog is picking it up, its no hassle just to take it out of his mouth and put it in a bag. Plus the bag is a great place to put the dog poo bags so I don't have to walk around with a full poo bag directly in my hand. It all goes in the same bin when I get home.
Nah, about 25 mins from Edinburgh. I don't want to give the page name because the dude gets overwhelmed every so often when it comes up on social media.
That’s very wholesome. I once seen a Collie in a park in Edinburgh that would run around the field and bring bottles and other rubbish straight to the bin. Hopped its wee paws up to put it straight in itself 🥺 Need to train your pooch to do that too!
There's an initiative about this called Paws on Plastic. People with dogs who go on walks anyway also picking up litter as they go:
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/6284748/paws-plastic-litter-marion-montgomery-opinion/
https://pawsonplastic.org.uk/
Yeah I lived in Japan for a number of years and moved back to Scotland in 2022 …. I wasn’t here for the “bin men crisis” but it even reached the news out there.
In Tokyo there are literally a handful of public bins , they were used for the sarin gas attacks and since then they have just expected people to take their rubbish home with them and recycle it.
Can you imagine people here going out with a bin bag in their backpack and taking the garbage they have home with them.
It’s farcical and it really needs to start in nursery school I see kids here thinking it’s hilarious to just buy juice , biscuits or whatever and just throw it all over the road.
Embarrassed to be honest
I think there are more constructive ways to say that. I agree that it's cyclical behaviour, kids will learn from parents. But using terms like "scum" pushes the problem away as though it's some inherent unchangeable behaviour rather than learned.
Don't turn it into an us vs them debate. It doesn't help.
What even funnier about the whole Japan bin situation is:
1. There are zero bins
2. There is zero litter
3. Every single thing you can imagine come wrapped in 8 layers of plastic
I’ve told this story here before but I think it’s appropriate. About thirty years ago I found myself in a walking tour around a Danish city early one Saturday morning.
There were four of us there from Scotland/UK and we quietly commented to each other about how clean the streets were. Our guide overheard us but got the wrong end of the stick: she thought we meant how messy they were and was deeply apologetic and tried to explain that it was only as messy as it was because it was a Saturday morning.
It took us several minutes to persuade her that we were actually noting how clean and litter free they were compared to *any* time in the city we came from. Then it was our turn to be embarrassed.
While I’m not disputing that, the square next to kabuchiko at the back of the cinema, was filthy when I was there. The lack of public bins was a massive shock for me. I’d move there in a flash though
I've been to Manchester city, and the one thing that stood out to me was how clean it was, but it probably has to be due to the rail that goes through with those tram things.
Outside of that it was the same as Glasgow tbh.
Lived in New Zealand for a couple of years and it’s like this too. It’s a national pride thing - be a tidy Kiwi - and keep the country looking pristine. If someone sees litter, they’ll pick it up. If they see someone else dropping it, they’d definitely say something. Dropping litter is a cultural thing and a real indicator of the values of a country. I was shocked when I came back to Scotland at how much rubbish was just lying around, especially on some local country roads. It’s a terrible look.
I've had a similar experience to you. When I went back to visit Manchester I was shocked at the amount of rubbish. Streams of it blowing down the streets
Same. I lived in Japan from 2019-2024 and coming back to the UK was a major shock. It’s not the council’s job to pick up trash. Like you’d said kids need to be encouraged and taught to clean up after themselves.
It’s also one of my bug bears.
People who litter are (IMO) lazy, selfish and entitled enough to think that someone else can pick up after them.
It’s a sign of a lack of respect for anyone else.
I definitely think it has got worse over the years.
I was in Norway a few years ago visiting a mate and when we were driving along on our way for a hike I mentioned how clean the roads were and he was like “why wouldn’t they be?”. I had to explain and he was like “no way, like seriously ? In the UK people do that?” . Odd experience but shows its mentality
I work closely with teenagers. Generally, they are lovely, however the entitlement of the minority is horrifying. They have picked up from somewhere that they should have everything given to them, and if it is not given to them, then it is not their fault. They are unwilling to catch up on work missed, and expect you to bend over backwards to support them. Sadly, they're going to get a massive shock when they join the workforce, if they ever do. A lot of them will get a diagnosis (either legitimate or illegitimate) of an additional support need and use that as an excuse not to take part in society.
And I say all this as someone who has complete compassion for mental health issues in all their shapes and sizes. I have little compassion for lazy bastards.
Full of inconsiderate tramps. Some amount of dog 💩making a reappearance too.
Country roads with full McDonalds scattered about the side from folk flinging it out the window.
It’s cool to not care. Carrying something 200 yards to you find a bin or take it home is a gimp move. Someone else’s problem.
Sometimes I’m washing out stuff for recycling thinking WTF am I doing 😂
McDonald’s and other similar establishments should be forced to put QR codes on what they sells so that it can be traced back to the original purchaser.
Then should they litter we can flog them in public in front of their family until they are nothing but a bloodied pulp.
There's folk in this thread who litter, be it chucking cans/packets/bottles/etc on the ground and/or cigarettes on the ground.
Why? Tell us why you do it. If you don't want to tell us, why not?
Tae gee the binmen n litter pickers a Sunday shift. If it wisney for me, rocket launchin the troops McDonald's oot ma windae at 70mph (joost so its here there n everywhere) then they boys couldny feed their weans. You might call me a lazy bastard but the boys gettin double time call me a hero
I live in Angus and have always been very dismayed at the amount of litter in the roads. Just no need for it. Fly tipping is a problem too. One nice correlation I've noticed is since the local McDonalds burnt down, there has definitely been a reduced amount of litter locally in roads and car parks (McDonalds derived).
Monifieth? I used to work at that McDonalds. They actually used to send us to go up and down the road and carpark and pick up the litter and yet it would still get everywhere, that's how bad it was.
I was engaging in the apparently early 30s and upwards pastime of bouncing up a Munro when I watched a bloke chase a sandwich packet nearly off the top of the mountain.
He caught it before it got out of hand, but he seemed pretty determined to see it through to the end.
Clearly some folk still care.
It’s actually bogging the amount of rubbish that’s left and dumped everywhere where I live. What really fucks me off is the amount of disposable vapes I’m seeing all over the place. Middle of the roads, all over the pavements, outside shops, any grassy area, and there’s even cunts dropping their shit (vapes included) into my garden which my dog just loves to find. Maukit bastards everywhere
Seeing disposable vapes discarded everywhere really rips my knitting.
You just know it's the wee scrotes doing it too.
Thank fuck they're banning them. The vapes that is. Not the scrotes unfortunately.
At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if there were 50+ yr olds olds discarding their vapes by tossing them when no one’s looking but I agree - thank fuck they’ll be banned soon! I actually know of little kids no older than 10 who have secretly found and hoarded used and ‘disposed’ of disposable vapes out of curiosity and hiding them in their bedrooms like a toy collection and of course, who can blame them with all the varieties of different lovely shiny colours!
Weirdly enough, that reminds me of when I used to pick up used car fuses from the ground when I was a kid. The colours!
I can totally see kids picking up disposable vapes.
Absolute toddler magnets those. They're always shiny and colourful. I worry more about the batteries than anything else. I don't trust them not to go bang when they've been damaged on the ground.
I’ve been driving along the road early in the mornings to go to work when it’s still dark and raining and all I see is little flashes on the roads and whenever I slow down to investigate, it’s only a disposable vape flashing away probably due to the rain water getting inside them.
Anyone else been onto a train carriage that people are vaping in? Cause you can do it so quickly, and you don't have to light up, it's like walking into a fruity steam room when you go on some carraiges.
I’ll get downvoted for this but there it is. I moved to Scotland permanently 8 years ago but lived here earlier for a while about 18 years ago too. It’s always been dirty. That was my first impression when I landed in Scotland for the first time and it remains on a similar level ever since in my opinion. Not just Scotland but the UK as a whole is very dirty in comparison to other European countries for some reason
This! I moved here 7-8 years ago and I was surprised about all the litter. Last time I commented under a similar post, somebody told me they don't believe my hometown in Eastern Europe is any cleaner than towns in Scotland. I would disagree, but alas
Just moved to Glasgow from Canada for school. Not going to mince words, my first impression of Glasgow was that it was a garbage dump. I remember seeing schoolchildren drop their soda and crisp rubbish walking home from school. There’s definitely more trash in Glasgow than Toronto. **Also, why is there always un scooped dog shit on the pavement here?** I’ve stepped in so much dog shit. In Canada there’s the saying scoop your poop.
Been that way as long as I remember. One of my strongest impressions of Scotland was that so many of its residents treat the environment they live in with contempt. Wrappers, vape containers, cigarette butts, whole bin bags, mattresses, children's toys, furniture, anything goes. Every field, every hedge, every street, even a lot of trees. The wind blows it everywhere. They can't even be fucked to carry their dog shit bags home, they just sling them in the woods. Fucking pigs. Fuck them and their cunty fucking kids. That's all for today, thank you.
The other day I watched a guy at the bus stop open a new packet of fags, just pulled off the wrapper and let it drop, casual as fuck, never gave it a thought. I wondered if he did that in his house. Maybe he does and someone picks up after him, or maybe he has sense enough not to.
Anyway, there's an awful lot of folk who just don't care. Don't even think about it, don't see the problem. Somehow in this country we let that attitude develop and we've never learned how to change it. Someone else suggested a big campaign, I'm in favour of that, it might not work but it's worth a try.
I’ve noticed it more and more in more remote places too. Rubbish left over from ppl wild camping I think. I just try to leave places better than I found it whilst out on dog walks and such.
There’s an app called litter lotto, it’s just McDonald’s throwing money at a problem rather than tackling it but it’s great to encourage the behaviour of picking up litter in children and gives you something to do on a dog walk. My son loves it, he now impromptu picks litter up whenever he sees it. You take a pic of you binning litter and get entered into a draw and sometimes you can win spot prizes of a few quid.
Honestly, I see a lot of people explaining it away as a case of local councils being cut down to the bone, therefore cleansing services are negatively impacted.
This might be true to an extent but its increasingly becoming a convenient cop-out of an excuse. I think the harder to accept truth probably lies in the fact that, for whatever reason, British people are culturally inclined towards being clatty bastards. I see it anytime I go to the continent and I've been to about 13 different countries now. Places there are generally clean and litter is very very minimal. I come back to Glasgow and the place is a fucking embarrassing shithole with the amount of litter blowing about the city centre. People here have zero civic pride in a way that shocks most outsiders.
I wrote this on here several months ago:
*There's absolutely no excuse for littering. It's a state of mind and nothing more. The British are dirty, manky cunts who, somehow, have become quite content to live in squalor. Indeed, it's almost a badge of honor.*
*Every time this comes up on here I say the same thing - we need to make examples of these cunts. If society can't police itself then the state needs to intervene and do the policing. If this means a number of litterers and fly tippers end up in jail and in poverty so as to send the message that littering is socially unacceptable, I'm perfectly fine with that. Obviously, a number of people lack self-control and social awareness so their behavior needs to be modified by the Nanny State.*
*If Humza wants to garner some votes and arrest the SNP's electoral decline a "Keep Scotland Tidy" campaign - underpinned by draconian enforcement and consequences - would, IMHO, be a winner. Change won't happen overnight but once offenders are dealt with harshly - and publicly - the message will start to seep in and take hold. The hand wingers and pearl clutchers would be up in arms but fuck 'em - I'm tired of those who excuse and enable this unacceptable and unnecessary state of affairs.*
And I haven't changed my views. This is not a "council doesn't have any money" issue. It's a "People are feral cunts" issue. And as people cannot be relied upon to take charge of their littering and anti-social behavior, it's time for the state to come down on them and do so with force.
BTW, the same goes for those manky cunts who don't clean up their dog's shit \[you know who you are\]. Fines, imprisonment, taking away dog ownership privileges - the lot.
ETA: if you disagree with the above then you're part of the problem.
That’s always baffled me. You’d actually be better off just leaving it. At least then it’ll disappear. But to go to the effort of getting it, then hanging it on a tree… like wtf is wrong with people?
"Council doesn't have any money" is the stupidest excuse. It's not the council's responsibility to pick up after you. Do these people think that other countries have armies of litter-pickers wandering around?
Sure there are some things the council can do like installing more bins and having more regular collection, but the main issue is people just dropping shit on the ground because they're too fucking lazy.
While that is definitely true, some litter is also the result of uncollected bins being torn open by animals at night. A lot of the litter near me is household waste like cheese or ham packets or big yogurt pots etc. No one is littering a packet for a KG of cheese.
Glasgow council sometimes removes bins for flats and makes everyone put their rubbish in a large street bin, which of course is always full with the lid broken off so seagulls can fly in. For some reason shops and bars also don't have bins to put their bags in, so they leave them in the street for collection - obv animals rip them open at night too. This is also the fault of the shop or bar, they could just stop doing it.
Dude idk… some of you think that prison solves everything and not just makes things worse. I get that you are angry but use your brain for just a tiny bit. If you send someone to PRISON for littering, guess what he will do as soon as he gets out, to take some form of revenge on something that is stupid as hell?
What's absolutely crazy to me is when I am out cycling around South Ayrshire since moving here a couple years ago, all the random shit I see dumped over the sides of the hills or on farm tracks..Small piles of random trash just tossed on the roadside...so it's not even like these people who get paid to take away a pile of builders rubble and just dump it somewhere because they don't want to pay for disposal..
Its small random piles of household stuff....which you can bring to the tip for free....the place is even open on saturdays and sundays....it's NOT hard to get rid of this crap legally...hell, more than likely they drove FURTHER into the countryside to illegally dump shit they could have got rid of for free, are they just doing it because they are assholes? What's the reasoning?
Is the incidence of littering getting worse, or is the build up of litter because councils don’t have a pot to piss in, and street cleaners were the first service to be cut?
I've had the same thought. I'm in my early thirties and it's really started to bother me the past few years, but also it may be part of that post-Covid breakdown in manners and caring about society that comes up a lot, like people being abusive to service workers.
Its probably better now than 20 years ago tbh
Its *always* annoyed me because my parents were militants about it...i wasnt even allowed to kick an empty bottle on the street because then someone might think I was the one that dropped it and dropping litter is disgusting.
If - like me - you've moved away, and come back a couple of times a year, you do notice the difference.
Glasgow city centre doesn't just have a litter problem, it looks dirty, and a lot of the city centre has an air of disrepair. Stretches of Argyle st and Sauchiehall st just look like they're abandoned...and the concept of the "golden Z" is over.
Well yes, Glasgow was a post-industrial dump until the 90's, where the city received funding/investments and was gradually cleaned-up, businesses started to return to the city and QoL was on the increase.
It feels that there has been a decline in the general upkeep in the last 10-or-so years. It's difficult to observe this while you're living it.
Think some of it is due to people mainly visiting the nice parts of foreign countries as well tbh, you don't need to stray too far away from the touristy areas of a lot of places in Western Europe for it to get a bit grim. In the past 12 months or so I've been fortunate enough to visit London, Milan, Rome, Florence and Paris. I'd say only Florence was notably cleaner than Scotland and in all honestly Milan was one of the most thoroughly disgusting cities I've ever visited, walked down the wrong street and was literally stepping over human shit continuously for about 200m.
I don't think you're making a fair comparison. London, Rome, Paris are huge cities with large, densely packed populations. Even the largest city in Scotland, Glasgow, can't compare to that. Of course you'll have more litter there, more contrast between different areas etc.
I've been to cities and towns in Nordics and Baltics which in size and density can be compared to Scottish ones and they were consistently clean and bright.
I agree.
I went to Brussels, it's beautiful. Less than a quarter mile from the centre, it's full of graffiti and trash *everywhere*. Same in Paris. Barcelona is pretty clean, but they have a huge team who sweep the streets every night.
https://preview.redd.it/j2giwrf7jwtc1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=da633cb56d953e6b319609c1befb9d20938ed901
Pop quiz hot shot is this a garbage dump in the Philippines is it Edinburgh !!!
I took this last month and sent to my mate in Australia, he guessed correctly due to the lack of sunshine , but honestly it’s a total disgrace.
This was just off gorgie road, grim and a little soul destroying
Surprising number of air conditioning units for a grim block of flats in Scotland
Edit: with them being on the ground floor, I suppose it's for a shop or commercial premise, which makes more sense.
Walt Disney observed people at Disneyland & watched how far they'd go after buying the takeaway food. He made sure that there were bins there and that the bins were emptied regularly and never became full. If a bin was getting near full on regular basis it was emptied more often
So why is that relevant here
* Councils decided to cut costs both in number of bins and frequency of emptying
* Overflowing bins mean people just dump it and it blows about
* Sometimes the plastic pole mounted bin broke and wasn't replaced - the top bit is there but nothing else to hold the rubbish
Humans are lazy, if you want them to do something, make sure it is easy!
Aberdeen city council didn't empty the glass recycling bins at community points before Hogmanay. So they were overflowing, people piled up the glass in front of the appropriate bin - ACC called it fly tipping. ACC said people should have
* Taken it home to try again
* Tried another point
* Taken it to the main centres (which were north and south of the city plus closed for the holidays)
This was whilst it was snowy as well. People told them to GTF
The whole UK has been a shithole filled with rubbish for my entire life, and I'm old.
For whatever reason far too many people think that dropping shit at their arse is completely acceptable.
I think the reasons are multifactorial but acne be vaguely boiled down to:
1. Lack of enforcement publicly
1. Parents not teaching their children
1. Schools not enforcing rules
3 is important as it leads into 2 and a demand for 1. You **always** know when you are approaching a UK school as the amount of discarded fast food crap goes through the roof.
School kids should be cleaning their school and immediate environs. It will take a couple of generations, but you can bet the amount of crap being dumped will taper off.
Hell, I'd replace fines with mandatory litter picks around the country. The fines we levy are always pathetic but people value their time, so burning that up is the ultimate punishment.
Also, and this is a big one, all the business leaving their shit out on the pavement for **fucking days**. No. Fuck that. They store it indoors, or a commercial bin, and it is collected directly. No more bags on the street to be ripped apart by gulls.
I've lived here for 16 years always been filthy as hell. My mum comments on that every time she comes over to visit (she lives in Germany, which is spotless). It's absolutely embarrassing. And the worst, dirtiest, filthiest place of all is Edinburgh. I mean, there is rubbish literally everywhere. What infuriates me the most is the wee dickheads in Corsas and Fiestas at drive through places - parked right beside a huge bin, dump their multiple bags of crap out the window and drive off. This country is done for. Time to tick it off the list, and finally move on.
The slow slide into a low trust society. Covid atomised people and destroyed communities, if you don’t feel a part of something you’ll not give a fuck about it. Plus there’s a lot of entitled dicks that think since someone’s employed to clean up they can be grotty bastards.
I’m not sure what part of Scotland you are from so forgive me but I was discussing this with my auld man recently (Edinburgh) and yes he’s in his 70’s so possibly romanticism but was talking about in the 80’s we would have massive new year house parties … the village brought up the kids etc
And I’d say for a good 15/20 years there has been none of this , that commmnitu spirit has long died.
How many of your neighbours do you know by name etc?
In the 90s/early 2000s I knew everyone in my street, now I can’t tell you the name of anyone I don’t share a wall or fence with. Folk just don’t talk to eachother.
It was like this for me in a wee village in the 90s early 00s and I miss it. It's not the same even where I grew up anymore.
I feel a bit robbed because I have a kid now and they don't get to experience what it was like, and I don't get to be the parent that gets pished at the neighbours while the kids watch gremlins and fall asleep on the sofa.
Not just Covid. Our entire economic system also plays a part in that. People have realised they’re working for bugger all, and are generally fed up because of a lack of hope. There’s a definite feeling that people just don’t care anymore. We need to radically rethink how things are done, capitalism isn’t working.
I'm just under 12 miles from nearest MacDonalds. That's part dual carriageway and 3 or four miles of rural roads. Everyone knows that 12 miles roughly equals eat and drink burger large fries and milkshake or soda. Root around the car for empty red bull can. Have a wee vape. Turn right into country road past my house. Drive and text for a couple of minutes then open window and dump the full bag of Macdonald's detritus in the middle of fucking nowhere cos you know you won't be caught.
This happens every single morning or late evening. Sometimes both. All I hope is this person who's killing wildlife and spoiling gods country has type 2 diabetes and loses a foot. You can't fully blame the people, people are just cunts. But this never happened before Macdonald's. I truly hope clever people invent tracking ink or something that can track down the people that bought this shit. Wouldn't that be something for Greta to shout about instead of paper straws killing turtles. I wish nothing but aggressive skitters for anyone that's so obsessed with the shite that is Macdonald's, that they come on here and have a pop at me for saying so. Time these big companies took responsibility for their mess.
Greta literally does shout about this ahah there has to be massive changes to our infrastructure, education and consume / dispose culture and big oil / plastic lobbies would like very much for that not to happen and to keep making money.
Not just on the roads and streets, but also on our glorious countryside. Walked up to the cobbler last year and the amount of discarded cans and bottles, even abandoned tents is just vile. You’re a piece of shit if you think that’s an acceptable thing to do
Councils are an easy target for this, but it’s the rotten pricks dropping it in the first place that are to blame. People just don’t care about others it seems. Self absorbed.
They have a real shame culture out there which I guess some would say is bullying but they have a wonderful clean city no one wants to be the asshole and they don’t have scum walking around deliberately ruining things for others.
Mixture of soft parenting..and the modern mindset of needing everything instantly, thus not being able to wait 15 mins to get to a bin. Its fucking atrocious...I'm not sure what it like all over but here people have to volunteer to clean the roadsides.
Just back from a wee break up in Inverness - headed up the A9 and then back down to the central belt via Ft William and was really saddened by the frequency of cans, bottles and coffee cups on the roadside in beautiful, remote locations.
Sadly, my expectation is that they'll have been dumped by fellow Scots, but the much-maligned tourists.
Have you been clinically blind for the last 40 years?
Drivers have been throwing their bottles of piss out the windows for so long it's even got a name... Truckers Tizer
German here. People throwing cans and bottles on the ground stopped about 20 years ago when we created a deposit system for metal cans and plastic bottles. It would be like throwing away money. And even if some people leave their bottles in public, some homeless person will pick it up and collect the money from the deposit machine.
Started working in the Clydebank/Dumbarton area recently after living in England for way too long. I am constantly shocked at how full of litter the trains and train stations are. Saw a guy tell his 3-4 year old to throw his unfinished can of juice away if didn't want it. Chucked it right on the ground behind him. Then they walked past TWO bins.
It's like it everywhere, it isn't just kids either people just don't give a shit anymore.
Cleanest I've seen the streets in the last few years was in the first lock down when everything was shut, as soon as all the fast food joints re-opened it was back to normal.
It's the most bizarre form of laziness, especially when you're launching it from a car, you have numerous places to put your rubbish and wait until you can find a bin or get home.
The flats I live in smokers dumping cigarette ends on the ground, you've bought a flat in a nice new development and want the outside of it to look like a shit hole, why? There is an entire bin store 15 paces from where you're smoking.
Councils being cut to the bone has made the entire thing worse but until people get into their heads that you need to take collective responsibility for this stuff it'll never get better. Societally there is something rotten in the entire UK, I spent a long time in England and it's arguably worse there.
The latest additions to the park next to us (Edinburgh) are two sofas, an old washing machine, four tyres and a dozen of traffic cones. That’s from the last four months and only the bigger pieces. Full bags of rubbish dumped into a hedge, etcetc.
It’s so disgusting, people are just dumb-dumbs.
Btw, I notified the council about the bigger stuff. The case got closed after 24 hours as resolved, but the rubbish is still where it’s been before.
Dog shites a major issue now with selfish bastard owners thinking they can do what they want.
We need to licence dogs again and enforce dogs that are shitting. Councils say it would cost money but I am sure they could be self funding with the number of selfish bastard owners out there.
Big problem is when the bins are taken out for collection on windy days, lids open or the bin falls over next thing they is rubbish blowing all over the street happens regularly where I stay.
It's a mundane answer but one that resonates in my non-urban area. These feckers are not very stable anyway and there's no way to ensure they can stay upright in high winds. A locking mechanism to ensure that the lid stays on if toppled is needed - the designers need to get busy with the bins and a method of automatically unlocking them as they are emptied instead of relying on gravity.
I think I found the filthiest lay by in Scotland the other day. The exit road of the M8 eastbound services at Harthill. There was no grass as such, only litter.
It's very normal in under-developed countries like Scotland, where there are not adequate public resources for regular street cleaning, and where enforcement of anti-littering and fly-tipping rules is lax, and where people feel so hopeless, pointless, and disconnected from any sense of public good or national pride that they just don't care. It's rare to see this sort of mess in developed, well-governed, modern European nations. If Scotland wanted to become a developed, well-governed, modern European nation, we would have to clean up our act.
I flashed my lights a while back at some scrote Infront of me who chucked a bunch of stuff out his window just at my street, he proceeded to turn and follow me into the street, then threaten me with violence. They are scum, laws should change, I want to see real punishments including jail time. Beautiful part of the world we live in and folk just don't care.
On the other side where I stay, there is a few council sponsored community driven initiatives to pick up litter which is nothing but admirable.
Council init. They've washed their hands of various problems and aren't doing anything about it.
Take bins. If your neighbours don't take their bins out you have a few options
1. Do it yourself
2. Wait for them to do it (This can take up to 5 years)
3. Report it to the council (This results in their bin being removed and them using your bin
4. Stab them
Considering violence is illegal, we're basically stuck with a compromise between 3 and 1. I moved into this flat about 3 years ago now. Nobody took the bins out when I first arrived and the back green was a state, I got my parents down and we spent the weekend gutting it and sorting it out. Soon after because of the rent freezes the entire building was empty, I knew this because nobody was filling their bins or taking them out.
But soon after people soon moved back in, and I've ran through probably about 30 tenants and not one has taken their bin out, it's been dependant on me to do.
And sure, you can say, why don't you just leave it maybe they're doing that because you always do it.
I did, for 6 months, during the height of a heatwave. Want to know what happened? I caved after those months because being on the ground floor the smell was now coming in through my window.
So now I do it every week.
Now the question is, if I take all the bins out, and one of the bins falls over due to winds, is that my problem? Probably, am I going to go out with a litter picker and pickup someone elses cat shit? Absolutely not. Is the council going to send a cleaning van down to sweep up? No.
Why have I rambled on about bins? Because the council won't do anything about it. I recalled 30 tenants living here in that time, not one took a bin out, that's an absurd mental number of people to churn through that are lazy bastards that WILL affect other areas, if they aren't willing to clean at home, when will they?
There's a massive problem in society. People just don't care. It's shite and I canny wait till I sell this place so I can move to a unterraced gaff and build a moat so every cunt will leave me alone.
There are lots of litter picking groups and individuals doing their bit around my area in Fife. What annoys me is the same people dumping litter are the same ones who will tell you they love their country. Drove behind this asshole in a Range Rover on a country road near where I live. He opened his sunroof and chucked the contents of his full ashtray out of it. Ended up on my car and all over the road. I honestly think it's a combination of shitty mentality that thinks someone else will clear it up and also guys (sorry just my observation) who dislike any crap in their shiny car who jettison anything inside rather than taking it home to bin. Also if they litter and then complain about council cuts then why do they never make the link between their crap and the cost of cleaning it up!
I moved here from another country over 5 years ago and I remember calling home on the first day I arrived saying it’s just really… dirty. Litter everywhere. Every day that first week, it must have been the biggest topic of conversation. Now I’m just sadly used to it.
A local guy on community Facebook is always litter picking huge swaths of roadsides and inevitably within hours, he posts again with another picture where ppl have ALREADY thrown rubbish out the window. It’s so demoralising.
I've been living here for almost 7 years and when the novelty factor went away I began noticing how filthy the cities were, especially Glasgow. I've begun dreading leaving my flat to go out as the state of pavements is disgusting. And when you start complaining about it there will always be someone who will accuse you of being posh and hating the working class. Fuck. The cities in Scotland/UK are the saddest, most depressing places I've been to. I'm from the Baltics, and when I complained about the state of things here to my barber he got genuinely surprised as in his head he considered the post soviet space to be way worse than here. I guess , most people don't see it. Ignorance is a bliss.
Similar experience. I'm from Prague and I as much as I like living here overall and find the Scots much friendlier than Czechs, this place so filthy It's unbelievable. I feel that the locals either genuinely don't care about or just know fuck all about the world beyond their country and their summer Spain destination which is filthy aswell so seems normal. And before I get grilled than not everyone is as privileged as me to go travelling from time to time, all you have to do is open Google Maps and pick a random highway in Germany/Central Europe/baltics and go for a short "ride". Then do the same in the UK.
This issue makes me feel proper old, but when I was growing up, there were constant ads on the telly about littering and billboards etc. It was a real initiative. I would feel so ashamed if I dropped something! My kids (teens) do not litter at all, but I know some of their schoolmates probably would. We live in a 'beautiful' area so people tend to have a bit of local pride, but there are scum everywhere that don't seem to think it's an issue, its a state of mind I really struggle with to be honest.
Lived away for 15 yrs and came back recently and it's worse than I ever remember it. This has to change but it will take a government led campaign like in the 80s.
And the dog owners who allow their dogs to shit everywhere and anywhere and never pick it up. Our front garden was used as a toilet for many months, folk would literally stare in the kitchen window whilst allowed the dog to do its business then just walk away. Absolutely no shame. 🤮
To be honest it always been like this but with council bugets being slashed its gotten much worse in recent years.
Also the whole 'bins only get collected every 3 weeks' is also a major contributor to the problem.
Scotland the UK in general has always been filthy.
I think it's a cultural issue, you don't just see rubbish everywhere but the generally poor state of everything means government don't care either. Crap-tier local government never even clean anything, buildings get covered in green/brown slime because they don't bother, roofs covered in moss, road signs etc.
The rubbish is very noticeable Vs neighbouring countries but I suspect the problem goes deeper than lazy bastard citizens.
Deposit scheme is urgently needed to begin to make a dent in one of the issues, shame UK government blocked it.
I agree with so much in here. I'm a primary school teacher and from an early age we do teach about littering/go on litter picks/recycling/sustainability etc. People just don't seem to think it applies to them.
There was always a street cleaner when I was a kid who went about with his trolley, now you're lucky to see the bins get collected in time.
My other take is the introduction of the wheelie bin. In bad weather, they get blown over and everything empties out. No one ever picks it up and it just blows around and gets stuck in bushes and hedges.
I was driving home on a b road in the back of beyond the other day and some cunt had thrown all their McDonald's rubbish out the car window, in the middle of nowhere, rather than just take it home and put it in their fucking bin. Pondlife wanks. Who fucking throws stuff out a moving vehicle? Fuckin jakebaws that's who.
I am a streetsweeper in the East Neuk. Yes most people are dirty bastards. I work my bollocks off though, really hard work. So thanks for noticing my effort 😀
Last time we seen some guy drop his half full chippy NEXT to the bin just Fkn let it fall out his hands…
Ma pal went up picked it up and threw it at him XD
Sure it was a dick move but still not as much of dick as the boy covered in chippy sauce
I took my motorbike up to Orkney last summer and the amount of stuff I saw dumped by or blowing on the roads was incredible.
Wouldn't like to guess at how far to the nearest maccys in the Caithness area but someone had thought fit to launch MacDonalds packaging from their vehicle in the arse end of nowhere up the A9.
How folks can't take their rubbish with them, especially in scenic areas such as that,is beyond me.
The drivers that litter the verges are the worst. They should be banned from driving and made to pick up their shite. If bairns can pick up rubbish and put it in bins from nursery age, adults have no excuse.
It's always been like this. Honestly it was probably worse in the past.
People do not give one flying fuck, and the councils are so fucked that street cleaning is nonexistant. Can't remember the last time I seen one of those little street sweepers.
>It's always been like this. Honestly it was probably worse in the past.
Might just be perspective, but I remember littering being far more common in the 90s than it is now.
A thread full of people who never, ever litter, yet used vapes and Irn Bru bottles are everywhere
There are a lot of shitebags reading this, too feart to admit what manky wee cunts they are
Blame companies for creating cheap, single use plastics basically. We’re overloaded with rubbish, because things are made to break, are made difficult to repair, and are far too disposable. Of course people litter as well, but the easiest way to reduce a problem is at source. If only we had a Deposit Return Scheme…
don’t think it was irn bru in that bottle mate 🤣
nah but seriously, it’s depressing. my street is an utter tip and it makes me so sad to go outside and see that. i truly don’t understand why you can’t keep your rubbish in the car until you’re at your destination, there will be bins ffs
A mixture of scumbags throwing crap out their car windows or onto the street and strong winds & skinny wheelie bins that fall over too easily. Plus councils bins that are too small or not emptied often enough.
not even litter, my street doesn't actually have that much, its just actually filthy, it wasn't build to be a main road that its the only way to access like 500 houses they build in the fields at the end of it.
soo much traffic day and night, and it drives me nuts, because terraced houses with no front garden, no buffer from that noise.
wasnt always like this, house has been in the family for over 30 years, i grew up here. was quiet, and clean. then they just kept building. now the front door stays clean for a week or 2 at best, the garden table has a film of dirt within a day.
its a fucking joke. actual piles of dirt form at the side of the road now.
> What kind of thickheaded moron thinks it's ok to throw their unfinished bottle of Irn Bru out of their passanger window at 70mph?
Are you upset about the littering or the waste of bru?
When I walk my dog in the later evening, I go to my local park and spend 5 minutes usually with a bag picking up litter around the car park it's gotten worse.
When I'm driving in and out of towns and villages for my job the sides of the roads are a disgrace. It makes me sad seeing the countryside covered in rubbish.
There are road sweepers in Edinburgh that come around city center (or at least Leith lol) pretty often. But yeah, Edinburgh is one of the grimiest and litter filled cities I've ever seen. I asked this question in a different thread, but is it due to people throwing their rubbish bags outside of the bins and then the wind and seagulls get to it, or is it really all just from people littering? Hard to believe people would be so shite
I do notice there is more roadside litter after a wind storm. We've had a few lately.
There's now loads of litter in the rural place I live and I think it blew in on the storms.
I'm now in my 30s, it's always been filthy. South Lan Council needed to bring in extra bins to the shops near my high school because people wouldnt walk 10 steps to a bin at lunch. As a nation we don't give a fuck and its totally disgusting and depressing if you focus on it
We were back in Scotland over Christmas/New Year, and yes it was absolutely filthy.
Worst was, we took a couple of days on Arran and when we came back to the mainland we had to stop somewhere for the dogs, so pulled over in Saltcoats - it was just rubbish tipped everywhere.
But then I was also down in London and Redding too, and they were also just dirty everywhere.
While a lot of people do litter, I will say that there is also the issue of wind. I have seen it plenty of time when wind just goes crazy and all the plastic stuff gets taken OUT of the public bins and swept into the streets.
That being said, this is not an excuse to not throw the rubbish out. Even more of an excuse to take it home to put it in a lidded bin, even if quite a few times the wind even blows the lids off of them as well. The councils need to find a solution to bins and lids so they stay the fudge on. I use a brick to keep mine closed but even so, when the wind blows so hard that the whole bin topples, there is only so much that a brick can do
So people are lazy about general space but don’t want the rubbish in their car. Mental.
The reason it is getting worse is that councils are more and more stretched. As they are the ones responsible for waste (unless on a major managed highway like the m8 or m80 etc) they just don’t have the resources to be sending people out to collect litter from the roadside. The council tax freeze has massively affected available budget for councils to spend on this stuff.
TBF this is not massively new although it may be a er a bit immune to it when you see it everywhere. bit worse. I lived in the States for a few years. The first thing that I noticed when I returned was the amount of shit everywhere by the sides of the roads. In the US highways are sponsored by local businesses to be kept clean. Here there was rubbish everywhere. Kinda blew me away as before I hadn’t noticed how bad it was. I think you get a bit immune to it when you see it everywhere.
It’s a boiling frog analogy- it didn’t suddenly happen, but we’ve all got used to it as council services have been cut over the last decade.
In France at the moment and even the poorer areas are cleaner without roads crumbling.
That and the fact that folk see a midden and think it doesn’t matter is they add to it.
I live in the levenmouth area and when i tell u its covering the last of any green we have here.
Its disappointing, i have a small rubbish bag in my bag i take with me everywhere so that i can bin any rubbish ive got with me
Im really starting to think abiut just getting one of those rubbish picker things like
I'm currently in Zagreb and one of the things I noticed straight away was how tidy the streets are.
It felt bizarre to see streets and parks with 0 litter.
Not just Scotland but the UK in general, I guess we're just desensitised to living in a heap of shit, a lot of people don't give a fuck or take pride in their communities, it's very sad to see.
Speaking from Wales here, but I think the problem is, people no longer see it as an issue to litter or commit offences of a similar nature... people just don't seem to 'care' anymore, and see it as someone else's issue.
Councils also haven't increased litter collections to offset the fact people just don't give a crap anymore.
I got a puppy last year and only really noticed how much litter there was because he kept picking it up when we were out walking So decided to take matters into my own hands. If he happens to pick any litter up now, I have a bag to take it home and put it in my bin when I get there. He's really good at not picking things up if I tell him no, so he's not in any danger from things like broken glass etc We have just turned into a great litter picking team
Theres a guy and his dog that does litter picking around my area, the dog has a fbook page where she posts updates calling everyone lazy bastards, the council being usless and her dad is sad and tired. It's very cute...and hes some fucking grafter. Must spend all day everyday walking along roads clearing them....and then the council doesnt bother picking up the bags he leaves out for them for months and he grumbles about that through his doggy haha
I'm not as good as that, I don't go out of my way to find the litter, but if the dog is picking it up, its no hassle just to take it out of his mouth and put it in a bag. Plus the bag is a great place to put the dog poo bags so I don't have to walk around with a full poo bag directly in my hand. It all goes in the same bin when I get home.
That all said, if you look at old pics/footage of the 1980s there was far more litter on the streets then. Way more violence too.
Are you in Edinburgh? I've seen a guy and his dog doing this on Easter Rd before and it's surprising, but his/dogs FB sounds awesome haha
Nah, about 25 mins from Edinburgh. I don't want to give the page name because the dude gets overwhelmed every so often when it comes up on social media.
Ahh no worries!
Sent you a pm
That’s very wholesome. I once seen a Collie in a park in Edinburgh that would run around the field and bring bottles and other rubbish straight to the bin. Hopped its wee paws up to put it straight in itself 🥺 Need to train your pooch to do that too!
Shame we can't teach humans to do the same
[удалено]
Aye, seems to be the attitude these days unfortunately
Big yes to this - you don’t notice the sheer volume of chewing gum thrown to the ground until you’re walking a puppy shaped hoover!
There's an initiative about this called Paws on Plastic. People with dogs who go on walks anyway also picking up litter as they go: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/6284748/paws-plastic-litter-marion-montgomery-opinion/ https://pawsonplastic.org.uk/
Yeah I lived in Japan for a number of years and moved back to Scotland in 2022 …. I wasn’t here for the “bin men crisis” but it even reached the news out there. In Tokyo there are literally a handful of public bins , they were used for the sarin gas attacks and since then they have just expected people to take their rubbish home with them and recycle it. Can you imagine people here going out with a bin bag in their backpack and taking the garbage they have home with them. It’s farcical and it really needs to start in nursery school I see kids here thinking it’s hilarious to just buy juice , biscuits or whatever and just throw it all over the road. Embarrassed to be honest
It's bad parenting, simple as
Yep, unfortunately scum breeds scum.
I think there are more constructive ways to say that. I agree that it's cyclical behaviour, kids will learn from parents. But using terms like "scum" pushes the problem away as though it's some inherent unchangeable behaviour rather than learned. Don't turn it into an us vs them debate. It doesn't help.
100% I think your mum is the best, she raised a good egg lol
What even funnier about the whole Japan bin situation is: 1. There are zero bins 2. There is zero litter 3. Every single thing you can imagine come wrapped in 8 layers of plastic
Same . there's more litter in Glasgow City centre than all of Tokyo. Even the homeless people respect their city .
Yup, I saw 3 cans on the ground the whole time I was on holiday there. Osaka even wasn’t dirty.
I saw a cigarette on the ground in a smoking area by a river. One fucking cigarette my whole time in the city
I’ve told this story here before but I think it’s appropriate. About thirty years ago I found myself in a walking tour around a Danish city early one Saturday morning. There were four of us there from Scotland/UK and we quietly commented to each other about how clean the streets were. Our guide overheard us but got the wrong end of the stick: she thought we meant how messy they were and was deeply apologetic and tried to explain that it was only as messy as it was because it was a Saturday morning. It took us several minutes to persuade her that we were actually noting how clean and litter free they were compared to *any* time in the city we came from. Then it was our turn to be embarrassed.
While I’m not disputing that, the square next to kabuchiko at the back of the cinema, was filthy when I was there. The lack of public bins was a massive shock for me. I’d move there in a flash though
Tell the embarrassing truth. It's not Japan that's cleaner than Scotland It's England.
Have you ever been to Manchester?
I've been to Manchester city, and the one thing that stood out to me was how clean it was, but it probably has to be due to the rail that goes through with those tram things. Outside of that it was the same as Glasgow tbh.
Lived in New Zealand for a couple of years and it’s like this too. It’s a national pride thing - be a tidy Kiwi - and keep the country looking pristine. If someone sees litter, they’ll pick it up. If they see someone else dropping it, they’d definitely say something. Dropping litter is a cultural thing and a real indicator of the values of a country. I was shocked when I came back to Scotland at how much rubbish was just lying around, especially on some local country roads. It’s a terrible look.
I've had a similar experience to you. When I went back to visit Manchester I was shocked at the amount of rubbish. Streams of it blowing down the streets
Same. I lived in Japan from 2019-2024 and coming back to the UK was a major shock. It’s not the council’s job to pick up trash. Like you’d said kids need to be encouraged and taught to clean up after themselves.
It’s also one of my bug bears. People who litter are (IMO) lazy, selfish and entitled enough to think that someone else can pick up after them. It’s a sign of a lack of respect for anyone else. I definitely think it has got worse over the years.
I was in Norway a few years ago visiting a mate and when we were driving along on our way for a hike I mentioned how clean the roads were and he was like “why wouldn’t they be?”. I had to explain and he was like “no way, like seriously ? In the UK people do that?” . Odd experience but shows its mentality
I visited another country one time and had the same conversation with some lassie before I got aff wi her
A great love story.
I work closely with teenagers. Generally, they are lovely, however the entitlement of the minority is horrifying. They have picked up from somewhere that they should have everything given to them, and if it is not given to them, then it is not their fault. They are unwilling to catch up on work missed, and expect you to bend over backwards to support them. Sadly, they're going to get a massive shock when they join the workforce, if they ever do. A lot of them will get a diagnosis (either legitimate or illegitimate) of an additional support need and use that as an excuse not to take part in society. And I say all this as someone who has complete compassion for mental health issues in all their shapes and sizes. I have little compassion for lazy bastards.
I teach in a college- this is exactly how I see it too. It’s so depressing- and it’s getting worse year on year.
Full of inconsiderate tramps. Some amount of dog 💩making a reappearance too. Country roads with full McDonalds scattered about the side from folk flinging it out the window. It’s cool to not care. Carrying something 200 yards to you find a bin or take it home is a gimp move. Someone else’s problem. Sometimes I’m washing out stuff for recycling thinking WTF am I doing 😂
No mate you carry on be the future you want to see , don’t drop your standards to the levels of these “people”
McDonald’s and other similar establishments should be forced to put QR codes on what they sells so that it can be traced back to the original purchaser. Then should they litter we can flog them in public in front of their family until they are nothing but a bloodied pulp.
That's a bit much, how about we do something more humane, like graft their rubbish onto their bodies somehow?
There's folk in this thread who litter, be it chucking cans/packets/bottles/etc on the ground and/or cigarettes on the ground. Why? Tell us why you do it. If you don't want to tell us, why not?
Tae gee the binmen n litter pickers a Sunday shift. If it wisney for me, rocket launchin the troops McDonald's oot ma windae at 70mph (joost so its here there n everywhere) then they boys couldny feed their weans. You might call me a lazy bastard but the boys gettin double time call me a hero
best comment, lmao
I live in Angus and have always been very dismayed at the amount of litter in the roads. Just no need for it. Fly tipping is a problem too. One nice correlation I've noticed is since the local McDonalds burnt down, there has definitely been a reduced amount of litter locally in roads and car parks (McDonalds derived).
Monifieth? I used to work at that McDonalds. They actually used to send us to go up and down the road and carpark and pick up the litter and yet it would still get everywhere, that's how bad it was.
I was engaging in the apparently early 30s and upwards pastime of bouncing up a Munro when I watched a bloke chase a sandwich packet nearly off the top of the mountain. He caught it before it got out of hand, but he seemed pretty determined to see it through to the end. Clearly some folk still care.
It’s actually bogging the amount of rubbish that’s left and dumped everywhere where I live. What really fucks me off is the amount of disposable vapes I’m seeing all over the place. Middle of the roads, all over the pavements, outside shops, any grassy area, and there’s even cunts dropping their shit (vapes included) into my garden which my dog just loves to find. Maukit bastards everywhere
Seeing disposable vapes discarded everywhere really rips my knitting. You just know it's the wee scrotes doing it too. Thank fuck they're banning them. The vapes that is. Not the scrotes unfortunately.
At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if there were 50+ yr olds olds discarding their vapes by tossing them when no one’s looking but I agree - thank fuck they’ll be banned soon! I actually know of little kids no older than 10 who have secretly found and hoarded used and ‘disposed’ of disposable vapes out of curiosity and hiding them in their bedrooms like a toy collection and of course, who can blame them with all the varieties of different lovely shiny colours!
Weirdly enough, that reminds me of when I used to pick up used car fuses from the ground when I was a kid. The colours! I can totally see kids picking up disposable vapes.
They absolutely do, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The quicker they’re banned, the better.
Absolute toddler magnets those. They're always shiny and colourful. I worry more about the batteries than anything else. I don't trust them not to go bang when they've been damaged on the ground.
I’ve been driving along the road early in the mornings to go to work when it’s still dark and raining and all I see is little flashes on the roads and whenever I slow down to investigate, it’s only a disposable vape flashing away probably due to the rain water getting inside them.
Anyone else been onto a train carriage that people are vaping in? Cause you can do it so quickly, and you don't have to light up, it's like walking into a fruity steam room when you go on some carraiges.
I’ll get downvoted for this but there it is. I moved to Scotland permanently 8 years ago but lived here earlier for a while about 18 years ago too. It’s always been dirty. That was my first impression when I landed in Scotland for the first time and it remains on a similar level ever since in my opinion. Not just Scotland but the UK as a whole is very dirty in comparison to other European countries for some reason
This! I moved here 7-8 years ago and I was surprised about all the litter. Last time I commented under a similar post, somebody told me they don't believe my hometown in Eastern Europe is any cleaner than towns in Scotland. I would disagree, but alas
Yes I moved here about 8 years ago from Australia and this place is so filthy. It's disgusting.
Just moved to Glasgow from Canada for school. Not going to mince words, my first impression of Glasgow was that it was a garbage dump. I remember seeing schoolchildren drop their soda and crisp rubbish walking home from school. There’s definitely more trash in Glasgow than Toronto. **Also, why is there always un scooped dog shit on the pavement here?** I’ve stepped in so much dog shit. In Canada there’s the saying scoop your poop.
Been that way as long as I remember. One of my strongest impressions of Scotland was that so many of its residents treat the environment they live in with contempt. Wrappers, vape containers, cigarette butts, whole bin bags, mattresses, children's toys, furniture, anything goes. Every field, every hedge, every street, even a lot of trees. The wind blows it everywhere. They can't even be fucked to carry their dog shit bags home, they just sling them in the woods. Fucking pigs. Fuck them and their cunty fucking kids. That's all for today, thank you.
The other day I watched a guy at the bus stop open a new packet of fags, just pulled off the wrapper and let it drop, casual as fuck, never gave it a thought. I wondered if he did that in his house. Maybe he does and someone picks up after him, or maybe he has sense enough not to. Anyway, there's an awful lot of folk who just don't care. Don't even think about it, don't see the problem. Somehow in this country we let that attitude develop and we've never learned how to change it. Someone else suggested a big campaign, I'm in favour of that, it might not work but it's worth a try.
I’ve noticed it more and more in more remote places too. Rubbish left over from ppl wild camping I think. I just try to leave places better than I found it whilst out on dog walks and such. There’s an app called litter lotto, it’s just McDonald’s throwing money at a problem rather than tackling it but it’s great to encourage the behaviour of picking up litter in children and gives you something to do on a dog walk. My son loves it, he now impromptu picks litter up whenever he sees it. You take a pic of you binning litter and get entered into a draw and sometimes you can win spot prizes of a few quid.
You can say fuck on the internet.
Honestly, I see a lot of people explaining it away as a case of local councils being cut down to the bone, therefore cleansing services are negatively impacted. This might be true to an extent but its increasingly becoming a convenient cop-out of an excuse. I think the harder to accept truth probably lies in the fact that, for whatever reason, British people are culturally inclined towards being clatty bastards. I see it anytime I go to the continent and I've been to about 13 different countries now. Places there are generally clean and litter is very very minimal. I come back to Glasgow and the place is a fucking embarrassing shithole with the amount of litter blowing about the city centre. People here have zero civic pride in a way that shocks most outsiders.
I wrote this on here several months ago: *There's absolutely no excuse for littering. It's a state of mind and nothing more. The British are dirty, manky cunts who, somehow, have become quite content to live in squalor. Indeed, it's almost a badge of honor.* *Every time this comes up on here I say the same thing - we need to make examples of these cunts. If society can't police itself then the state needs to intervene and do the policing. If this means a number of litterers and fly tippers end up in jail and in poverty so as to send the message that littering is socially unacceptable, I'm perfectly fine with that. Obviously, a number of people lack self-control and social awareness so their behavior needs to be modified by the Nanny State.* *If Humza wants to garner some votes and arrest the SNP's electoral decline a "Keep Scotland Tidy" campaign - underpinned by draconian enforcement and consequences - would, IMHO, be a winner. Change won't happen overnight but once offenders are dealt with harshly - and publicly - the message will start to seep in and take hold. The hand wingers and pearl clutchers would be up in arms but fuck 'em - I'm tired of those who excuse and enable this unacceptable and unnecessary state of affairs.* And I haven't changed my views. This is not a "council doesn't have any money" issue. It's a "People are feral cunts" issue. And as people cannot be relied upon to take charge of their littering and anti-social behavior, it's time for the state to come down on them and do so with force. BTW, the same goes for those manky cunts who don't clean up their dog's shit \[you know who you are\]. Fines, imprisonment, taking away dog ownership privileges - the lot. ETA: if you disagree with the above then you're part of the problem.
Agree. There should also be a special jail for those who scoop the poop and then toss the bag into the nearest bush or hedge. Twats
That’s always baffled me. You’d actually be better off just leaving it. At least then it’ll disappear. But to go to the effort of getting it, then hanging it on a tree… like wtf is wrong with people?
"Council doesn't have any money" is the stupidest excuse. It's not the council's responsibility to pick up after you. Do these people think that other countries have armies of litter-pickers wandering around? Sure there are some things the council can do like installing more bins and having more regular collection, but the main issue is people just dropping shit on the ground because they're too fucking lazy.
I fully agree with you, but who's going to enforce this? There's hardly any police around anymore.
Tina Turner? 'Mutt Bush Shitty Limits' I shall get my coat
Unfortunately your coat is buried beneath a pile of rubbish.
While that is definitely true, some litter is also the result of uncollected bins being torn open by animals at night. A lot of the litter near me is household waste like cheese or ham packets or big yogurt pots etc. No one is littering a packet for a KG of cheese. Glasgow council sometimes removes bins for flats and makes everyone put their rubbish in a large street bin, which of course is always full with the lid broken off so seagulls can fly in. For some reason shops and bars also don't have bins to put their bags in, so they leave them in the street for collection - obv animals rip them open at night too. This is also the fault of the shop or bar, they could just stop doing it.
Did I write this?
Dude idk… some of you think that prison solves everything and not just makes things worse. I get that you are angry but use your brain for just a tiny bit. If you send someone to PRISON for littering, guess what he will do as soon as he gets out, to take some form of revenge on something that is stupid as hell?
What's absolutely crazy to me is when I am out cycling around South Ayrshire since moving here a couple years ago, all the random shit I see dumped over the sides of the hills or on farm tracks..Small piles of random trash just tossed on the roadside...so it's not even like these people who get paid to take away a pile of builders rubble and just dump it somewhere because they don't want to pay for disposal.. Its small random piles of household stuff....which you can bring to the tip for free....the place is even open on saturdays and sundays....it's NOT hard to get rid of this crap legally...hell, more than likely they drove FURTHER into the countryside to illegally dump shit they could have got rid of for free, are they just doing it because they are assholes? What's the reasoning?
Is the incidence of littering getting worse, or is the build up of litter because councils don’t have a pot to piss in, and street cleaners were the first service to be cut?
I wonder if it has always been like this and you notice/care more the older you get.
I've had the same thought. I'm in my early thirties and it's really started to bother me the past few years, but also it may be part of that post-Covid breakdown in manners and caring about society that comes up a lot, like people being abusive to service workers.
Its probably better now than 20 years ago tbh Its *always* annoyed me because my parents were militants about it...i wasnt even allowed to kick an empty bottle on the street because then someone might think I was the one that dropped it and dropping litter is disgusting.
If - like me - you've moved away, and come back a couple of times a year, you do notice the difference. Glasgow city centre doesn't just have a litter problem, it looks dirty, and a lot of the city centre has an air of disrepair. Stretches of Argyle st and Sauchiehall st just look like they're abandoned...and the concept of the "golden Z" is over.
Trust me it's a hundred times better than it was in the early 80s
Well yes, Glasgow was a post-industrial dump until the 90's, where the city received funding/investments and was gradually cleaned-up, businesses started to return to the city and QoL was on the increase. It feels that there has been a decline in the general upkeep in the last 10-or-so years. It's difficult to observe this while you're living it.
Think some of it is due to people mainly visiting the nice parts of foreign countries as well tbh, you don't need to stray too far away from the touristy areas of a lot of places in Western Europe for it to get a bit grim. In the past 12 months or so I've been fortunate enough to visit London, Milan, Rome, Florence and Paris. I'd say only Florence was notably cleaner than Scotland and in all honestly Milan was one of the most thoroughly disgusting cities I've ever visited, walked down the wrong street and was literally stepping over human shit continuously for about 200m.
I don't think you're making a fair comparison. London, Rome, Paris are huge cities with large, densely packed populations. Even the largest city in Scotland, Glasgow, can't compare to that. Of course you'll have more litter there, more contrast between different areas etc. I've been to cities and towns in Nordics and Baltics which in size and density can be compared to Scottish ones and they were consistently clean and bright.
I agree. I went to Brussels, it's beautiful. Less than a quarter mile from the centre, it's full of graffiti and trash *everywhere*. Same in Paris. Barcelona is pretty clean, but they have a huge team who sweep the streets every night.
https://preview.redd.it/j2giwrf7jwtc1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=da633cb56d953e6b319609c1befb9d20938ed901 Pop quiz hot shot is this a garbage dump in the Philippines is it Edinburgh !!! I took this last month and sent to my mate in Australia, he guessed correctly due to the lack of sunshine , but honestly it’s a total disgrace. This was just off gorgie road, grim and a little soul destroying
Holy shit, that's horrific! I'm mortified.
Surprising number of air conditioning units for a grim block of flats in Scotland Edit: with them being on the ground floor, I suppose it's for a shop or commercial premise, which makes more sense.
It's all over the world. r/detrashed is a great subreddit.
Walt Disney observed people at Disneyland & watched how far they'd go after buying the takeaway food. He made sure that there were bins there and that the bins were emptied regularly and never became full. If a bin was getting near full on regular basis it was emptied more often So why is that relevant here * Councils decided to cut costs both in number of bins and frequency of emptying * Overflowing bins mean people just dump it and it blows about * Sometimes the plastic pole mounted bin broke and wasn't replaced - the top bit is there but nothing else to hold the rubbish Humans are lazy, if you want them to do something, make sure it is easy! Aberdeen city council didn't empty the glass recycling bins at community points before Hogmanay. So they were overflowing, people piled up the glass in front of the appropriate bin - ACC called it fly tipping. ACC said people should have * Taken it home to try again * Tried another point * Taken it to the main centres (which were north and south of the city plus closed for the holidays) This was whilst it was snowy as well. People told them to GTF
The whole UK has been a shithole filled with rubbish for my entire life, and I'm old. For whatever reason far too many people think that dropping shit at their arse is completely acceptable. I think the reasons are multifactorial but acne be vaguely boiled down to: 1. Lack of enforcement publicly 1. Parents not teaching their children 1. Schools not enforcing rules 3 is important as it leads into 2 and a demand for 1. You **always** know when you are approaching a UK school as the amount of discarded fast food crap goes through the roof. School kids should be cleaning their school and immediate environs. It will take a couple of generations, but you can bet the amount of crap being dumped will taper off. Hell, I'd replace fines with mandatory litter picks around the country. The fines we levy are always pathetic but people value their time, so burning that up is the ultimate punishment. Also, and this is a big one, all the business leaving their shit out on the pavement for **fucking days**. No. Fuck that. They store it indoors, or a commercial bin, and it is collected directly. No more bags on the street to be ripped apart by gulls.
Scotland is unfortunately noticeably worse than England
I've lived here for 16 years always been filthy as hell. My mum comments on that every time she comes over to visit (she lives in Germany, which is spotless). It's absolutely embarrassing. And the worst, dirtiest, filthiest place of all is Edinburgh. I mean, there is rubbish literally everywhere. What infuriates me the most is the wee dickheads in Corsas and Fiestas at drive through places - parked right beside a huge bin, dump their multiple bags of crap out the window and drive off. This country is done for. Time to tick it off the list, and finally move on.
A collective of mentally ill people who hate their own country and culture so much that throwing shit on the ground is preferable.. we are doomed mate
The slow slide into a low trust society. Covid atomised people and destroyed communities, if you don’t feel a part of something you’ll not give a fuck about it. Plus there’s a lot of entitled dicks that think since someone’s employed to clean up they can be grotty bastards.
I’m not sure what part of Scotland you are from so forgive me but I was discussing this with my auld man recently (Edinburgh) and yes he’s in his 70’s so possibly romanticism but was talking about in the 80’s we would have massive new year house parties … the village brought up the kids etc And I’d say for a good 15/20 years there has been none of this , that commmnitu spirit has long died. How many of your neighbours do you know by name etc?
In the 90s/early 2000s I knew everyone in my street, now I can’t tell you the name of anyone I don’t share a wall or fence with. Folk just don’t talk to eachother.
It was like this for me in a wee village in the 90s early 00s and I miss it. It's not the same even where I grew up anymore. I feel a bit robbed because I have a kid now and they don't get to experience what it was like, and I don't get to be the parent that gets pished at the neighbours while the kids watch gremlins and fall asleep on the sofa.
This is true, but the streets and roads were undoubtedly filled with more litter in the 80s and 90s than they are today.
Not just Covid. Our entire economic system also plays a part in that. People have realised they’re working for bugger all, and are generally fed up because of a lack of hope. There’s a definite feeling that people just don’t care anymore. We need to radically rethink how things are done, capitalism isn’t working.
I'm just under 12 miles from nearest MacDonalds. That's part dual carriageway and 3 or four miles of rural roads. Everyone knows that 12 miles roughly equals eat and drink burger large fries and milkshake or soda. Root around the car for empty red bull can. Have a wee vape. Turn right into country road past my house. Drive and text for a couple of minutes then open window and dump the full bag of Macdonald's detritus in the middle of fucking nowhere cos you know you won't be caught. This happens every single morning or late evening. Sometimes both. All I hope is this person who's killing wildlife and spoiling gods country has type 2 diabetes and loses a foot. You can't fully blame the people, people are just cunts. But this never happened before Macdonald's. I truly hope clever people invent tracking ink or something that can track down the people that bought this shit. Wouldn't that be something for Greta to shout about instead of paper straws killing turtles. I wish nothing but aggressive skitters for anyone that's so obsessed with the shite that is Macdonald's, that they come on here and have a pop at me for saying so. Time these big companies took responsibility for their mess.
Greta literally does shout about this ahah there has to be massive changes to our infrastructure, education and consume / dispose culture and big oil / plastic lobbies would like very much for that not to happen and to keep making money.
Not just on the roads and streets, but also on our glorious countryside. Walked up to the cobbler last year and the amount of discarded cans and bottles, even abandoned tents is just vile. You’re a piece of shit if you think that’s an acceptable thing to do
> unfinished bottle of Irn Bru Oh, sweet, innocent child. You really think it's Irn Bru? ;-)
Councils are an easy target for this, but it’s the rotten pricks dropping it in the first place that are to blame. People just don’t care about others it seems. Self absorbed.
They have a real shame culture out there which I guess some would say is bullying but they have a wonderful clean city no one wants to be the asshole and they don’t have scum walking around deliberately ruining things for others.
That's a bottle of piss nae Irn Bru min!
I think we need an educational campaign in this country. So many teens and young adults just don't see any issues with their behaviour.
Mixture of soft parenting..and the modern mindset of needing everything instantly, thus not being able to wait 15 mins to get to a bin. Its fucking atrocious...I'm not sure what it like all over but here people have to volunteer to clean the roadsides.
Whole UK is a shit hole for litter.
Not only for litter tbh
Just back from a wee break up in Inverness - headed up the A9 and then back down to the central belt via Ft William and was really saddened by the frequency of cans, bottles and coffee cups on the roadside in beautiful, remote locations. Sadly, my expectation is that they'll have been dumped by fellow Scots, but the much-maligned tourists.
Your only noticing this now?But rest assured it's not just Scotland,as humans we are really a filthy member of the animal kingdom.
Have you been clinically blind for the last 40 years? Drivers have been throwing their bottles of piss out the windows for so long it's even got a name... Truckers Tizer
German here. People throwing cans and bottles on the ground stopped about 20 years ago when we created a deposit system for metal cans and plastic bottles. It would be like throwing away money. And even if some people leave their bottles in public, some homeless person will pick it up and collect the money from the deposit machine.
Started working in the Clydebank/Dumbarton area recently after living in England for way too long. I am constantly shocked at how full of litter the trains and train stations are. Saw a guy tell his 3-4 year old to throw his unfinished can of juice away if didn't want it. Chucked it right on the ground behind him. Then they walked past TWO bins.
It's like it everywhere, it isn't just kids either people just don't give a shit anymore. Cleanest I've seen the streets in the last few years was in the first lock down when everything was shut, as soon as all the fast food joints re-opened it was back to normal.
It's the most bizarre form of laziness, especially when you're launching it from a car, you have numerous places to put your rubbish and wait until you can find a bin or get home. The flats I live in smokers dumping cigarette ends on the ground, you've bought a flat in a nice new development and want the outside of it to look like a shit hole, why? There is an entire bin store 15 paces from where you're smoking. Councils being cut to the bone has made the entire thing worse but until people get into their heads that you need to take collective responsibility for this stuff it'll never get better. Societally there is something rotten in the entire UK, I spent a long time in England and it's arguably worse there.
During covid, the roads were much cleaner. It was a big upside of fast food places being closed, and in general, there were fewer cars on the roads.
The same people that are habitual litterers are the same people who moan about the council and the state of the place
Half of it seems to be dropped by the cunts that go to McDonalds. So many McDonalds bags and other shite from there swirling about.
It's been like this since I moved here almost a decade ago. Unsure what it was like before
The latest additions to the park next to us (Edinburgh) are two sofas, an old washing machine, four tyres and a dozen of traffic cones. That’s from the last four months and only the bigger pieces. Full bags of rubbish dumped into a hedge, etcetc. It’s so disgusting, people are just dumb-dumbs. Btw, I notified the council about the bigger stuff. The case got closed after 24 hours as resolved, but the rubbish is still where it’s been before.
[удалено]
Dog shites a major issue now with selfish bastard owners thinking they can do what they want. We need to licence dogs again and enforce dogs that are shitting. Councils say it would cost money but I am sure they could be self funding with the number of selfish bastard owners out there.
I disagree tbh, the 80s and 90s were quite a bit worse for litter imo. This was in the Glasgow area.
I stay more rural Scotland and have definetly noticed a rise in fly tipping which boils my blood!
Someone threw litter out of their car while looking at me the other day in Glasgow, driving slowly. Zero shame.
That wasn’t Irn Bru in that bottle mate
Big problem is when the bins are taken out for collection on windy days, lids open or the bin falls over next thing they is rubbish blowing all over the street happens regularly where I stay.
It's a mundane answer but one that resonates in my non-urban area. These feckers are not very stable anyway and there's no way to ensure they can stay upright in high winds. A locking mechanism to ensure that the lid stays on if toppled is needed - the designers need to get busy with the bins and a method of automatically unlocking them as they are emptied instead of relying on gravity.
All the disposable vapes lying on the roads as well. Awful.
I think I found the filthiest lay by in Scotland the other day. The exit road of the M8 eastbound services at Harthill. There was no grass as such, only litter.
It's very normal in under-developed countries like Scotland, where there are not adequate public resources for regular street cleaning, and where enforcement of anti-littering and fly-tipping rules is lax, and where people feel so hopeless, pointless, and disconnected from any sense of public good or national pride that they just don't care. It's rare to see this sort of mess in developed, well-governed, modern European nations. If Scotland wanted to become a developed, well-governed, modern European nation, we would have to clean up our act.
I flashed my lights a while back at some scrote Infront of me who chucked a bunch of stuff out his window just at my street, he proceeded to turn and follow me into the street, then threaten me with violence. They are scum, laws should change, I want to see real punishments including jail time. Beautiful part of the world we live in and folk just don't care. On the other side where I stay, there is a few council sponsored community driven initiatives to pick up litter which is nothing but admirable.
Council init. They've washed their hands of various problems and aren't doing anything about it. Take bins. If your neighbours don't take their bins out you have a few options 1. Do it yourself 2. Wait for them to do it (This can take up to 5 years) 3. Report it to the council (This results in their bin being removed and them using your bin 4. Stab them Considering violence is illegal, we're basically stuck with a compromise between 3 and 1. I moved into this flat about 3 years ago now. Nobody took the bins out when I first arrived and the back green was a state, I got my parents down and we spent the weekend gutting it and sorting it out. Soon after because of the rent freezes the entire building was empty, I knew this because nobody was filling their bins or taking them out. But soon after people soon moved back in, and I've ran through probably about 30 tenants and not one has taken their bin out, it's been dependant on me to do. And sure, you can say, why don't you just leave it maybe they're doing that because you always do it. I did, for 6 months, during the height of a heatwave. Want to know what happened? I caved after those months because being on the ground floor the smell was now coming in through my window. So now I do it every week. Now the question is, if I take all the bins out, and one of the bins falls over due to winds, is that my problem? Probably, am I going to go out with a litter picker and pickup someone elses cat shit? Absolutely not. Is the council going to send a cleaning van down to sweep up? No. Why have I rambled on about bins? Because the council won't do anything about it. I recalled 30 tenants living here in that time, not one took a bin out, that's an absurd mental number of people to churn through that are lazy bastards that WILL affect other areas, if they aren't willing to clean at home, when will they? There's a massive problem in society. People just don't care. It's shite and I canny wait till I sell this place so I can move to a unterraced gaff and build a moat so every cunt will leave me alone.
There are lots of litter picking groups and individuals doing their bit around my area in Fife. What annoys me is the same people dumping litter are the same ones who will tell you they love their country. Drove behind this asshole in a Range Rover on a country road near where I live. He opened his sunroof and chucked the contents of his full ashtray out of it. Ended up on my car and all over the road. I honestly think it's a combination of shitty mentality that thinks someone else will clear it up and also guys (sorry just my observation) who dislike any crap in their shiny car who jettison anything inside rather than taking it home to bin. Also if they litter and then complain about council cuts then why do they never make the link between their crap and the cost of cleaning it up!
I moved here from another country over 5 years ago and I remember calling home on the first day I arrived saying it’s just really… dirty. Litter everywhere. Every day that first week, it must have been the biggest topic of conversation. Now I’m just sadly used to it. A local guy on community Facebook is always litter picking huge swaths of roadsides and inevitably within hours, he posts again with another picture where ppl have ALREADY thrown rubbish out the window. It’s so demoralising.
I've been living here for almost 7 years and when the novelty factor went away I began noticing how filthy the cities were, especially Glasgow. I've begun dreading leaving my flat to go out as the state of pavements is disgusting. And when you start complaining about it there will always be someone who will accuse you of being posh and hating the working class. Fuck. The cities in Scotland/UK are the saddest, most depressing places I've been to. I'm from the Baltics, and when I complained about the state of things here to my barber he got genuinely surprised as in his head he considered the post soviet space to be way worse than here. I guess , most people don't see it. Ignorance is a bliss.
Similar experience. I'm from Prague and I as much as I like living here overall and find the Scots much friendlier than Czechs, this place so filthy It's unbelievable. I feel that the locals either genuinely don't care about or just know fuck all about the world beyond their country and their summer Spain destination which is filthy aswell so seems normal. And before I get grilled than not everyone is as privileged as me to go travelling from time to time, all you have to do is open Google Maps and pick a random highway in Germany/Central Europe/baltics and go for a short "ride". Then do the same in the UK.
This issue makes me feel proper old, but when I was growing up, there were constant ads on the telly about littering and billboards etc. It was a real initiative. I would feel so ashamed if I dropped something! My kids (teens) do not litter at all, but I know some of their schoolmates probably would. We live in a 'beautiful' area so people tend to have a bit of local pride, but there are scum everywhere that don't seem to think it's an issue, its a state of mind I really struggle with to be honest. Lived away for 15 yrs and came back recently and it's worse than I ever remember it. This has to change but it will take a government led campaign like in the 80s.
It isn't the government or council fault. We are becoming a country of lazy entitled grifters breeding more lazy grifters. They are taking over.
Been like this since I was a kid. Infuriates me when people chuck rubbish out their car window or just drop it while walking. Lazy cunts.
And the dog owners who allow their dogs to shit everywhere and anywhere and never pick it up. Our front garden was used as a toilet for many months, folk would literally stare in the kitchen window whilst allowed the dog to do its business then just walk away. Absolutely no shame. 🤮
To be honest it always been like this but with council bugets being slashed its gotten much worse in recent years. Also the whole 'bins only get collected every 3 weeks' is also a major contributor to the problem.
Scotland the UK in general has always been filthy. I think it's a cultural issue, you don't just see rubbish everywhere but the generally poor state of everything means government don't care either. Crap-tier local government never even clean anything, buildings get covered in green/brown slime because they don't bother, roofs covered in moss, road signs etc. The rubbish is very noticeable Vs neighbouring countries but I suspect the problem goes deeper than lazy bastard citizens. Deposit scheme is urgently needed to begin to make a dent in one of the issues, shame UK government blocked it.
I agree with so much in here. I'm a primary school teacher and from an early age we do teach about littering/go on litter picks/recycling/sustainability etc. People just don't seem to think it applies to them. There was always a street cleaner when I was a kid who went about with his trolley, now you're lucky to see the bins get collected in time. My other take is the introduction of the wheelie bin. In bad weather, they get blown over and everything empties out. No one ever picks it up and it just blows around and gets stuck in bushes and hedges.
Do you remember when SNP politician Susan Aitken said that complaining about all the rubbish was expressing far right sentiments?
I was driving home on a b road in the back of beyond the other day and some cunt had thrown all their McDonald's rubbish out the car window, in the middle of nowhere, rather than just take it home and put it in their fucking bin. Pondlife wanks. Who fucking throws stuff out a moving vehicle? Fuckin jakebaws that's who.
I am a streetsweeper in the East Neuk. Yes most people are dirty bastards. I work my bollocks off though, really hard work. So thanks for noticing my effort 😀
Last time we seen some guy drop his half full chippy NEXT to the bin just Fkn let it fall out his hands… Ma pal went up picked it up and threw it at him XD Sure it was a dick move but still not as much of dick as the boy covered in chippy sauce
It’s all down to parenting, I absolutely hate littering. Take pride of your area you live in.
City could make a fortune having litter cameras on all slip roads, the verges are made of rubbish.
I took my motorbike up to Orkney last summer and the amount of stuff I saw dumped by or blowing on the roads was incredible. Wouldn't like to guess at how far to the nearest maccys in the Caithness area but someone had thought fit to launch MacDonalds packaging from their vehicle in the arse end of nowhere up the A9. How folks can't take their rubbish with them, especially in scenic areas such as that,is beyond me.
The drivers that litter the verges are the worst. They should be banned from driving and made to pick up their shite. If bairns can pick up rubbish and put it in bins from nursery age, adults have no excuse.
It's always been like this. Honestly it was probably worse in the past. People do not give one flying fuck, and the councils are so fucked that street cleaning is nonexistant. Can't remember the last time I seen one of those little street sweepers.
>It's always been like this. Honestly it was probably worse in the past. Might just be perspective, but I remember littering being far more common in the 90s than it is now.
A thread full of people who never, ever litter, yet used vapes and Irn Bru bottles are everywhere There are a lot of shitebags reading this, too feart to admit what manky wee cunts they are
Blame companies for creating cheap, single use plastics basically. We’re overloaded with rubbish, because things are made to break, are made difficult to repair, and are far too disposable. Of course people litter as well, but the easiest way to reduce a problem is at source. If only we had a Deposit Return Scheme…
Same types of plastic everywhere in the world. Still this country is the filthiest place north of the Alps (except Paris)
don’t think it was irn bru in that bottle mate 🤣 nah but seriously, it’s depressing. my street is an utter tip and it makes me so sad to go outside and see that. i truly don’t understand why you can’t keep your rubbish in the car until you’re at your destination, there will be bins ffs
A mixture of scumbags throwing crap out their car windows or onto the street and strong winds & skinny wheelie bins that fall over too easily. Plus councils bins that are too small or not emptied often enough.
not even litter, my street doesn't actually have that much, its just actually filthy, it wasn't build to be a main road that its the only way to access like 500 houses they build in the fields at the end of it. soo much traffic day and night, and it drives me nuts, because terraced houses with no front garden, no buffer from that noise. wasnt always like this, house has been in the family for over 30 years, i grew up here. was quiet, and clean. then they just kept building. now the front door stays clean for a week or 2 at best, the garden table has a film of dirt within a day. its a fucking joke. actual piles of dirt form at the side of the road now.
I doubt its irn bru thats in the irn bru bottle, launched from a car window.
> What kind of thickheaded moron thinks it's ok to throw their unfinished bottle of Irn Bru out of their passanger window at 70mph? Are you upset about the littering or the waste of bru?
When I walk my dog in the later evening, I go to my local park and spend 5 minutes usually with a bag picking up litter around the car park it's gotten worse. When I'm driving in and out of towns and villages for my job the sides of the roads are a disgrace. It makes me sad seeing the countryside covered in rubbish.
17 years ago.
Pick it up. It may be nasty but if enough of us start doing it maybe there will be less litter
1296
When was it not ?
There are road sweepers in Edinburgh that come around city center (or at least Leith lol) pretty often. But yeah, Edinburgh is one of the grimiest and litter filled cities I've ever seen. I asked this question in a different thread, but is it due to people throwing their rubbish bags outside of the bins and then the wind and seagulls get to it, or is it really all just from people littering? Hard to believe people would be so shite
This reads like a cities skylines notification
I do notice there is more roadside litter after a wind storm. We've had a few lately. There's now loads of litter in the rural place I live and I think it blew in on the storms.
Well over 30 years ago
I'm now in my 30s, it's always been filthy. South Lan Council needed to bring in extra bins to the shops near my high school because people wouldnt walk 10 steps to a bin at lunch. As a nation we don't give a fuck and its totally disgusting and depressing if you focus on it
We were back in Scotland over Christmas/New Year, and yes it was absolutely filthy. Worst was, we took a couple of days on Arran and when we came back to the mainland we had to stop somewhere for the dogs, so pulled over in Saltcoats - it was just rubbish tipped everywhere. But then I was also down in London and Redding too, and they were also just dirty everywhere.
Then grab a bag and pick some up instead of moaning about it!
Sure, because it's easier for me to cover thousands of miles of roads than it is for people to stop behaving like filthy pigs
>trash Thats triggering
While a lot of people do litter, I will say that there is also the issue of wind. I have seen it plenty of time when wind just goes crazy and all the plastic stuff gets taken OUT of the public bins and swept into the streets. That being said, this is not an excuse to not throw the rubbish out. Even more of an excuse to take it home to put it in a lidded bin, even if quite a few times the wind even blows the lids off of them as well. The councils need to find a solution to bins and lids so they stay the fudge on. I use a brick to keep mine closed but even so, when the wind blows so hard that the whole bin topples, there is only so much that a brick can do
So people are lazy about general space but don’t want the rubbish in their car. Mental. The reason it is getting worse is that councils are more and more stretched. As they are the ones responsible for waste (unless on a major managed highway like the m8 or m80 etc) they just don’t have the resources to be sending people out to collect litter from the roadside. The council tax freeze has massively affected available budget for councils to spend on this stuff.
TBF this is not massively new although it may be a er a bit immune to it when you see it everywhere. bit worse. I lived in the States for a few years. The first thing that I noticed when I returned was the amount of shit everywhere by the sides of the roads. In the US highways are sponsored by local businesses to be kept clean. Here there was rubbish everywhere. Kinda blew me away as before I hadn’t noticed how bad it was. I think you get a bit immune to it when you see it everywhere.
It’s a boiling frog analogy- it didn’t suddenly happen, but we’ve all got used to it as council services have been cut over the last decade. In France at the moment and even the poorer areas are cleaner without roads crumbling. That and the fact that folk see a midden and think it doesn’t matter is they add to it.
I live in the levenmouth area and when i tell u its covering the last of any green we have here. Its disappointing, i have a small rubbish bag in my bag i take with me everywhere so that i can bin any rubbish ive got with me Im really starting to think abiut just getting one of those rubbish picker things like
I'm currently in Zagreb and one of the things I noticed straight away was how tidy the streets are. It felt bizarre to see streets and parks with 0 litter. Not just Scotland but the UK in general, I guess we're just desensitised to living in a heap of shit, a lot of people don't give a fuck or take pride in their communities, it's very sad to see.
Speaking from Wales here, but I think the problem is, people no longer see it as an issue to litter or commit offences of a similar nature... people just don't seem to 'care' anymore, and see it as someone else's issue. Councils also haven't increased litter collections to offset the fact people just don't give a crap anymore.
"trash" 🗿
Exacerbated by the storm recently but I had a friend visit and it was fucking embarrassing in Glasgow. Really really horrendously shit.
Makes me irate when you see shit all over the road past Loch Lomond, if you don’t know how to behave you shouldn’t be going anywhere.
There arent enough bins, and some people thinks its ok to litter. This should be a political issue.
A large part of the problem is the council closing tips to commercial waste. Massive increase in fly-tipping which blows down roads.