Litter

[TWR]

I wonder what overseas visitors think of the litter on the streets of the UK, I am talking about the UK only.

[Mamyalynne]

Well,if they come over from somewhere that is pristine and see litter here,they are likely saddened to see it.

[ummmm]

I went to Germany as a young teen. I have never dropped litter ever since.

[TWR]

I was reding about Germany this morning Ummmm, that's the point of my Q

[ummmm]

It's a lovely country.

[boxtops]

Is it only us that's plagued with chewing gum marks on the pavement?

[gness]

Returning from Ireland I'm always sickened by the filth and litter in this country.... clean and tidy is possible....x

[Buenchico]

It depends where you go in the UK. I'd be amazed if you could find much litter around here in our small town (of fewer than 5000 people) because there's a full-time litter collector employed by the town council and volunteer teams who help out at weekends. There's actually very little for them to do because people see a clean town and keep it that way.

Even the nearest large town (Ipswich, pop.approx 135000) has hardly any litter because there are loads of wardens ready to hand out penalty notices to people who drop a fag end.

When I lived in Sheffield (back in the 1970s and 1980s) the litter situation in the city centre was appalling, with ankle-deep litter carpeting the Castle Market area on a Saturday afternoon. The attitude of young people towards litter was also terrible. (I taught teenagers, from 'nice' homes, who simply couldn't see anything wrong with dropping their crisp packets in the playground or in the school corridors. If you challenged them about it they'd simply say "That's what cleaners are for" and their parents would usually agree with them). I've not been to Sheffield very many times since I left there but it's clear that they've now started to get well on top of the litter problem and that young people's attitudes have been changed.

So, as I see it, things are now vastly better than they were a couple of decades ago.

[Peter Pedant]

Try Cairo - O god the streets look so clean when you come back

[Purple_Popple]

Germany is beautifully clean ! I couldn't believe the lack of rubbish on the streets over there. Which brings me to my walk last night - sad I know, but I counted the number of piled of dog excrement and bits of discarded tissues and kitchen roll - when compared surprisingly the pieces of used tissues - that people of coughed into, blown their nose on, wiped their bums on or their kids bums on etc - outnumbered the dog poo but a hefty number! Yuk !

[jourdain2]

Here (France) the only litter on the sides of the roads is on the National routes which are used by lorries and others to transit countries.

[Obiter]

Soviet Russia had clean streets. When I was there a lit a cigarette and dropped the matchstick on the pavement, at which point I was immediately attacked by a babushka with her besom, who told me in no uncertain terms that it was not her job to seep the pavement all day just to have me drop a matchstick.

[Obiter]

^^sweep

[tamborine]

A german lady here pokes the litter down storm drains with her stick.