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Dirty Scruffy Nation?

Robt

Member
Location
Suffolk
I think there's a real disconnect between people and their surroundings and how they value it. People just don't seem to care as it's not them having to clear it up or live next to it. I'm sure the vast, vast majority of them do not live in squalor and do not treat their homes like how they treat the countryside or even urban areas. As Chasingmytail has just said the increase in food on the go and convenience outlets has played a significant part in this increase. Albeit it's not them directly causing it but rather their customers. I've seen the idea of having vehicle registrations printed onto the bag/ packaging of food bought from 'Drive thrus' such as Mc Donalds, KFC etc discussed on Twitter which I think would help make people more accountable, however how is it going to be enforceable?

It's not just the roadsides that are blighted by this issue, even down rural footpaths dog walkers bag up their dogs waste and then just toss it to one side or what's even worse is when they hang the bag from a branch :mad:.

Having been to the continent quite a bit recently and looking at their roads, their verges do seem significantly cleaner than ours.
For the first time ever. I saw someone just throw the litter out of the window at a macdonalds car park. I was in a bad mood. I ran out of my car. Grabed it and shouted loud at them as i threw it back in. (coming of tablets has its benefits!) the little sod and sodete nealy cried!. They were someones kids that have never been taught.
It made me feel great all day. More should do it. The chances of getting knifed or shot ar 0.001%
 

Scholsey

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Herefordshire
Said it on another thread, packaging should be traceable back to a card/till transaction, barcode logged and fines issued if found strewn across a lane gateway.
 

Weasel

Member
Location
in the hills
For the first time ever. I saw someone just throw the litter out of the window at a macdonalds car park. I was in a bad mood. I ran out of my car. Grabed it and shouted loud at them as i threw it back in. (coming of tablets has its benefits!) the little sod and sodete nealy cried!. They were someones kids that have never been taught.
It made me feel great all day. More should do it. The chances of getting knifed or shot ar 0.001%

What tablets have you come off?
 
Same all over , it's no better here. storm Brendon washed up huge amounts of sea weed here last week. When I was young we used to cart this onto the fields and spread it for fertiliser. Today there are thousands of tons along the shoreline, but there is so much litter amongst it you couldn't even consider doing this. You'd only be polluting the land. Sad.
 

Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Said it on another thread, packaging should be traceable back to a card/till transaction, barcode logged and fines issued if found strewn across a lane gateway.
I suppose another option is to make all packaging into something that quickly biodegradable.

Not ideal and won’t stop the litter louts I accept but at least what they throw out the window soon dissipates.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
I suppose another option is to make all packaging into something that quickly biodegradable.

Not ideal and won’t stop the litter louts I accept but at least what they throw out the window soon dissipates.

Totally agree. No fast food should be allowed out, unless the packaging is bidegradeable within a short time... A week?

Grabbed a pack of sarnies today and the cardboard box had a plastic window AND a plastic liner. Stupid.
 
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Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Totally agree. No fast food should be allowed out unless the packaging is bidegradeable within a short time... A week?

Grabbed a pack of sarnies today and the cardboard box had a plastic window AND a plastic liner. Stupid.
The amount of packaging generated in fast food joints is biblical! Yeah there getting better but even the in store recycling set ups are confusing I think.

As for plastic bottles whatever was wrong with the glass ones that we got money back on when empty.
 
I suppose another option is to make all packaging into something that quickly biodegradable.

Not ideal and won’t stop the litter louts I accept but at least what they throw out the window soon dissipates.
agree but biodegradable in vast amounts with shelf life whilst keeping costs low isnt going to work. At this food on the go is cheap really cheap. Perhaps simply taxing the hell out of takeaways which includes a 15% environmental fee to the councils. Perhaps make people think about packing their own lunch. Its not difficult and its a lot cheaper.
 

S J H

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I pick some up whenever I take my girl to primary school, it's a nice village, but people walk past it.

I reported some flytipping to the council a couple of days ago, she was very keen on the phone and its gone now, it was some pallets with a delivery ticket so hopefully they'll catch up with them.
 

delilah

Member
As for plastic bottles whatever was wrong with the glass ones that we got money back on when empty

Returnable glass bottles only work - economically and environmentally - when operated on a local/regional level. Hence milk and pop bottles have disappeared as supermarkets have taken over.
Market share is the root of all evil.

Can't the community service scrotes pick up the rubbish?... Oh that's right....that would be seen to be derogatory.

We have Community Payback lads with us every Sunday; contact your local probation office and offer to supervise them on meaningful activity on your patch (y).
Oh, word of advice, best not to call them scrotes. The only difference between them and us is that we haven't been caught yet.
 
I heard a good one today. A contractor for the leccy company called to explain he would be ‘pruning’ some trees. A lot of trees in inaccessible places on the farm. So where do they put the brash? Too far and too wet for a chipper with difficult access. So he suggests chucking it on the hedges, in the hedge bottoms or leaving piles in the grass fields.
He announced (having seen my face drop a mile) that he was ‘an environmentalist’.

Noooo. His company just wanted to avoid landfill tax or extra cost of dealing with waste. And were not averse to using bugs, beetles and creepy crawlies as a shield.
 
I've said for ages there is only one solution to this problem, and its a massive packaging tax that is then returned to whoever recycles the item. Make every piece of rubbish worth something, then people will make sure its disposed of, because if they don't they are throwing money out of the window. Not only that, if they do, the public spirited person who picks it up gets rewarded by being able to cash in the item instead. Every item is barcoded already, or could have one of those QR codes printed on it, with all the information needed. A crisp packet could be worth a few pence on its own, returned to a recycling centre.

Think of the advantages - everyone is incentivised to recycle, any rubbish that is dumped would be collected by voluntary organisation looking to raise cash. The whole country would rapidly be denuded of rubbish. There would be a commercial incentive for waste companies to stick compacters in accessible places (such as shopping centre car parks) that people could feed their waste into and get cash out, and arbitrage the difference. Ie a coke can delivered to an official recycling centre might be worth 5p, but Waste Inc's machine in a carpark near you might pay 3 or 4p, and they'd pocket the difference. The council would pay you to collect your household waste even. Once there is value there's a market and incentives, all of which are missing today.
The problem with making rubbish valuable to charities or whoever picks it up is it could encourage more rubbish to be chucked out the window, “just doing my bit for charity “
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
Very rarely go into town theses days but had too yesterday. Was walking through main shop area when I saw a young lady with a toddler who threw a crisp packet on the floor (lady did not toddler) I picked it up and caught up with her and said ...excuse me but I'm not sure if you realise but you dropped this on the floor . Her face was a picture and she hastily. said Thankyou and stuffed it in her bag .
 

Ukjay

Member
Location
Wales!
old values of being polite to your elders, care of the countryside and your local area, helping your community ? what community, i think many see where they live as a temporary stepping stone to somewhere else? I watched the cornish fishing series being shown on TV last night and it was sad to here how locals born and bred are being driven out by rich incommers ? So cant afford to live where they live and work.

Regrettably, it is easier to see fault with others, wrongs that are being done than it is to admit we are part of the same problem.
 

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Webinar: Expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive offer 2024 -26th Sept

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On Thursday 26th September, we’re holding a webinar for farmers to go through the guidance, actions and detail for the expanded Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer. This was planned for end of May, but had to be delayed due to the general election. We apologise about that.

Farming and Countryside Programme Director, Janet Hughes will be joined by policy leads working on SFI, and colleagues from the Rural Payment Agency and Catchment Sensitive Farming.

This webinar will be...
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