Why Do People Litter the Countryside
What exactly is the mentality behind just throwing your detritus wherever you happen to be ?
What kind of half-witted dead-beat moron sees a lovely river with swallows swooping at hatching larvae, ducks swimming, birds in the reeds and water voles in the bank covered by overhanging trees and thinks . . .
“I know what this scene needs . . . a beer can !”
I understand that people hold different ideas of values and behaviour just as people seem to have different ideas of what constitutes personal hygiene but surely somethings are clear even to the most avid Big Brother viewer 
In fairness, I think the littering situation is a lot better than it was a few years ago - campaigns to raise the awareness seem to have worked and those in possession of sufficient mental capacity to tie their own shoe laces now seem to regard it as socially unacceptable to throw, for example, a cigarette packet on the floor.
That didn’t stop the Brain Donor who was at this river before me !
Man Meets Mother Nature !
I wish I’d seen the person do it - he’d have followed his beer tin !
Notice gender use ! I presume male, do I also presume it was a youth as well ?
Not immediately though it probably was in this case !
That said there are plenty of, so called, adults who go to ‘feed the ducks’ at a nearby pond taking their unpleasant, screaming and bug spraying infants with them.
They follow the old tradition of throwing bread to the ducks - shame many of them can’t start a new tradition of taking the plastic bag back home with them
I think I’ll just banjo the next male aged between 14 to 60 I see littering by the River Freshney, it won’t make much difference but it’ll make me feel better and him feel a whole lot worse !
Rantingly Yours
Rod
Little Brother said,
July 31, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
Rod,
Well said…scum.
LB
chris keyworth said,
July 31, 2009 @ 10:56 pm
unfortunatly its the times we live in, i blame the perants but without defending this sort of antisocial littering.
history is infact told to us mainly by peoples litter without this valuable source of evidence we would know very little about our ancesters
regards
chris
Tom C. said,
August 1, 2009 @ 10:51 am
This is one of my more hated forms of disrespect people show for the community around them. Rod you think the River Freshney is bad you should explore the little group of trees behind it. You can’t even step on the ground without touching some form of litter. It was probably the hideout for some disillusioned teens. Good article - though in a perfect world it shouldn’t have to have been written.
Rod said,
August 1, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
Hi Tom,
the thing that really beats me is that those people are making a mess of the very area, by definition of them being there, that they want to use.
Presumably they like the spot so why not keep it nice for themselves even if they care about nothing else ?
It’s unacceptable behaviour and as I always say:
If you want to know whether any action is acceptable or not ask yourself “what would happen if everybody did it ?”
Cheers
Rod
juli said,
August 2, 2009 @ 10:50 pm
This has got to be one of my pet hates of the moment. It’s always annoyed me the way people think it’s generally acceptable to litter, but it’s been accelerated since I stopped driving and started getting the train to work - there are no bins in either of the train stations I use, which apparently makes it ok to throw your starbucks cardboard cup onto the platform!
I know they say it’s to prevent terrorism, but there are bins in the metro stations on tyneside - they’re just a clear bin bag suspended by a metal and rubber circle, presumably the idea is that if the bin bag is clear you’d be able to see if someone put a bomb in it!?
Littering in general makes me angry. I walk along one of the most scenic routes along the river in Durham on my way to work, and it makes me so sad to notice all of the plastic bottles floating along the river, although to be fair I do reckon some of them weren’t intentionally dumped - the debris, man-made and otherwise, in the river has increased a lot since we had very heavy rainfall a fortnight ago which resulted in flooding of land further upstream. I can only assume various litter got washed unintentionally into the river somewhere.
Incidentally, here’s a littering puzzle for people. I quite often pick up a metro paper on my way to work (for the uninitiated, this is a free daily newspaper issued at rail and other public transport stations for people just to pick up) and the trend on the tyneside metro seems to be for people to read the paper then leave it on the seat for the next person to read. Is that littering, or am I ok doing this?
Rod said,
August 3, 2009 @ 8:07 am
Juli,
I think leaving the paper on the seat for the next traveller counts as recycling
It would be nice if councils and the like put a bit more money into cleaning the rivers up.
I’m convinced littering is the same as ‘The Broken Window’ effect. The more litter the more likely people are to litter and vice versa
Best
Rod
Brian said,
January 26, 2011 @ 1:28 pm
The amount of litter everywhere is huge. In South Wales it appears to be accepted a a normal state of affairs even in the most rural areas. Fly tipping also appears to be a national pastime. The hedgerows along country lanes ,the coastline , and especially areas controlled by Network rail are heavily littered . I think the main problem is that when tn a car you dont see the litter for the most part and would go home thinking you had travelled through scenic countryside, Its not until you walk that the litter becomes apparent. and not many people do that these days. I
I sure councils do their best on limited budgets and indead do keep shopping and tourist area generally clear,
However their recources obviously dont stretch to minor roads or footpaths Also much land alonside roads, retail parks, industrial areas etc is privatly owned and as such is not under council control and the owner is under no obligation to control the litter. I presume that as it would not generate income ,they dont.
Anyway the origional question refered to the mentality of the litter droppers-Me, Me, Me , - End of story
Rod said,
January 26, 2011 @ 7:11 pm
Brian,
thanks for the comment and welcome to the site - I’m in whole-hearted agreement with you.
It’s easy to blame councils etc but they didn’t cause the problem and it’s not relaistic to expect them to be able to pick it all up - we the public are to blame.
I’ve walked many miles in Switzerland Brian and never once seen litter or dog mess - it’s all cultural and about respect in general I believe
Regards
Rod
History Hunter said,
January 26, 2011 @ 11:58 pm
Up on the north wall, where Stealth Pooch does her regular run, its a veritable assault course making your way round all the dog crap along there. Myself and my good wife have had very strange looks from people for doing the unimaginable ……….. picking up Stealth Pooch’s plentiful deposits and carrying them, in a bag, back to the car. I mean, come on, who in their right mind would even think that that is acceptable???? Me and the bride, thats who! Shame nobody else has the same idea really!