Roadside and layby litter and dumping...

Quarrelsome.

That wasn't to jd.

dj.

Ah, but not (just) someone from Switzerland, someone coming home.

What is EF, Jalima??

I was jd before I became dj, so I answer to both, thanks, jingl.
You said what I meant in one word. I will have to learn to be more succinct.

I can't do with litter. It's about time we had a bit more of that public nagging information we used to get on the telly. Litter, litter, everywhere, it gets in your feet, it gets in your hair...

I'm not as grumpy about it as DH though. He goes off on one every time he has to dispose of another McDonalds box (it's just far enough away from us that people finish their Big Mac as they pass the end of our street). I was delighted when we saw how filthy parts of Berlin are - one of his rants is that it's not like this anywhere else in the world. I took some delightful selfies ankle-deep in rubbish next to overflowing bins

Some of the photos on www.fixmystreet.com are of rubbish next to overflowing bins, Maggie.
It usually gets fixed quite quickly once the council's attention has been drawn to it.
One of the problems of council cuts is that there are not enough council workers to do the job. They need help from the public to alert them to these anti-social problems.

Maybe we need to tempt Madame Cholet across from another thread which shall not be named and ask her to set her team of Wombles to work -
? ? "Underground overground, wombling free,
The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we". ??

DJ, No the problem is not the council, they are the solution. The problem is the people that leave the rubbish, if they bought it, why can't they just take it home with them. Unless they bring it with the sole purpose of dumping it.

I am surprised about the comments on litter on motorways. I don't see that much, other than debris fallen from vehicles as people cannot stop on M roads.

I do have this thing about shoes/boots. How many times do you see one shoe beside the road, did the owner continue his journey with only one shoe.

Sssshhhh, Alea, she might hear you..... My overflowing bins were on the banks of the River Spree though, dj. I don't think fixmystreet can help with them.

I didn't say the council was the problem; I said the council cuts were the problem.

Was tired after the long journey - Soutra who lived in my area before was definitely a Gransnet member- seems to have gone however.

Yes, when we go to England we say we are 'going home' and when we arrive back we say we 'are home' - its wonderful to truly feel at home in 2 places- and love both for very different reasons- and criticise or get upset about some aspects of both- and admire others.

Denial that there is a litter/fly tipping problem in the UK and some countries, and not in others- is just plain silly and really does not help.

DJ- there is NO rubbish collection here whatsoever and all have to be responsible for taking their rubbish, be it every day bins or other stuff, to the relevant tip. There is a twice yearly collection of larger items, that have to be placed at certain points on a route, 1 in Spring and 1 in autumn- that's it. As said, all electrical goods include a pre-paid disposal fee for the time when it will need disposing off at some point- and electrical shops have to take them back. Unwanted furniture, etc, gets crushed and burnt with other rubbish, providing energy for local housing and public buildings. Hardly anything goes into landfill - which is just as well as there is so little land available (so much of it being moutains and lakes, and the rest housing, arable of vineyards).

Lovely day- time to catch up with gardening. Toodle pip - or as I learnt last week- jiggery thump!

How on earth do the elderly and disabled cope as it appears to be every man for himself re rubbish collection or disposal. I think that I will stay here where at least my bins are emptied fortnightly.

Back in the day when I were a lad...............

We had metal dustbins with a lin (convenitntly used on mischief night tied to doorknobs) and some of our more common neighbours used to burn their rubbish in the bins. My mother would never allow such frenzied activity right outside the back door

The binmen came right up the path to the door and collected and delivered the now empty bin back.

Everything went into said bin, but since there was little in the way of packaging in those days the bin never overflowed in our house. we did not throw a stitch of food away. the dog ate the leftovers.

That was the good old days

Now - I have a brown bin for garden rubbish emptied twice a month in the summer which is wonderful

And - I have two green bins for the recycling because that amounts to most of my rubbish emptied twice per month.

Plus - an ordinary bin for the rest again emptied twice a month.

Is it better now ? Of course it is apart from the ugly eyesore that they are.

I have a bin station behind a fence so I'm lucky, but I don't think I'd like it if they were lined up at the front of the house as some people have to do.

Nonnie1 unfortunately that is where all of our bins are. I could not physically move a full bin from my garden to the front where they are picked up. I suppose that I no longer see the bins in front of our front windows.

Must say I'd hate that. DDs also have the 4 bin system- and it takes huge amounts of space, fortunately at the side of the house. We 'only' had 3, and had to put traipse them up the long drive to the pavement outside very early in the morning.

Like most things and systems, there are pros and cons. Here the council have place massive in the ground bins at very regular intervals- and everybody has one within about 1 mile. Most people have cars and drop them on the way to shopping or to work- neighbours take the ones on elderly/handicapped around them, and there is also a private service for those wo want it. People also have really used this as an opportunity to get down massively on waste- buying fruit and veg without packaging, etc- and being even more careful about recycling and composting, etc. Some areas have pre-paid official bags (bags of a certain colour for the area with the Council name written on- different prices for different areas) and here we pay by weight with a 'credit card' type thing, where the weight of each bag is put towards our account. It has saved huge amounts of money to the Councils, and since the new system we pay much much less than before. Personally I like the concept of 'polluter/user pays'.

I think that councils in the UK ought to make more of the fact that the more we recycle the lower our council tax bills will be.

They won't be, though.

Why not- no better to incentivise people but to share any savings. We've always paid for refuse disposal as a separate item here, like water (all metered) - and the vast majority of people have gone along with the new system as they could see their bills go down greatly if they made the effort.

Certainly been a very effective way to encourage parents to potty train earlier again, and switch to shaped washable nappies- win win.

An 80% reduction in the amount of waste going to landfill because the residents use recycling facilities more has saved County Durham £5 million pounds in one year.
What do you think they did with it, had a big knees-up?
They kept the council tax bill down.

Bravo- it's great at Council/community level - but imho great to incentivise individual people and households. If people know that they will pay much less if they produce less, firsty but choosing to have less packaging, etc, then secondly by recycling well- and the money will go direct to their own pocket, it seems to work even better.

By the way, this is what can happen to your plastic milk containers and other recycled plastics.

www.marmax-products.co.uk/home

Durham Council had a competition to find the best poster to advertise recycling. The school that the winner went to was given a picnic bench by the company.

We have six or seven receptacles. A box for glass, a bag for paper, a bag for tins, a bag for textiles, a bin for food waste, a bin for general waste, and a bin for garden waste (this one has to be paid for if you want it - we have a compost heap instead). My DDs, in neighbouring authorities, have just two bins - one for all recyclables, one for general waste. Our system is certainly unsightly (all those bits and pieces lined up, partially blocking the pavement outside our terrace), but apparently our council's system is doing really well, so it's probably worth it. There's a heck of a mess on a windy day though.