A green and pleasant land?

[daffy]

Do you have the latest technology in your vehicle?
Do you like to keep the interior of your vehicle all spic and span?

Then you could be just who I am looking for!

Technologically speaking, the device(s) has been around for many years now, but lately, at least in my experience and locale, it has come into its own as the 'must use' item.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it is seemingly 'on trend' at the moment.

Most users of this device have a strong desire to declutter, and, at just the touch of a button, can improve their immediate environment in mere seconds, without any need to delay their journey.

I speak of course of the electric window winder, which has a handy little button that allows driver, or passenger, to lower a window in a second or two, thus giving free passage to the trajectory of all manner of unwanted items that might be at hand.
Such as:
- drinks cans and plastic bottles of all sizes and types, particularly Stella Artois, Fruit-Shoot, Coca Cola and Red Bull;
- single-drinks cups - usually but not exclusively equipped with straw and anti-spill lid;
- sandwich wrappers and boxes;
- plastic bags that once contained all manner of sugary treats;
- glass bottles (that previously contained sherry, vodka, or gin);
- chocolate and snack bar wrappers;
- miscellaneous plastics, paper and card;
- used lottery scratch-cards;
- and last but not least, the entire detritus left after eating a meal from McDonalds and the like, often thoughtfully wrapped in the original brown paper bag, though usually widely scattered.


I live in a tiny village on a relatively quite country road - farm vehicles aside - and most days I take a walk around a two mile circuit from my house, and every day I can pick up at least a standard carrier bag full of the whole gamut of items listed above, leaving the area cleared once again for the 'trendy' to do their thing. Yesterday I took a route I rarely take as it's a busier country road, but still quiet in many ways. My walk was just twelve minutes out and twelve back. On the return I decided to pick up the staggeringly high number of items that had amassed courtesy of the trendy over the last few months, though my carrier bag was full, despite me crushing cans and bottles, within just 100 yards. Today I will take a larger garden refuse bag, which I fully expect to fill to the brim collecting the remainder that I passed.

As this is a family forum I will not give details of what I would like to do to the many trendsetters hereabouts. Suffice to say none of it would be legal, though leaving them on the side of the road to rot may be better for the environment than what they choose to discard.

[guest311]

unfortunately there have also been cases of  using this equipment to jettison unwanted puppies / kittens / hamsters.

I however will state clearly what I would do to them, even on this family forum ....

I'd take them, suitably restrained, for a trip around the greater london carpark [otherwise known as the M25] in the back of a transit, and once I found an area where I could attain 50 + mph, I'D JETTISON THEM, preferably just in front of an eastern european juggernaut with a driver who was [1] well over his hours and half asleep, and [2] on his phone !

[port perran]

We too live in a small rural village and suffer similarly.
We have an added problem in that the publc waste disposal amenity is about 4 miles away and many people with assorted junk piled on trailers, which are often illegal in various ways, pass by losing bits of said junk en-route.
Do they stop to pick it up ?
Of course not.

[emjaybee]

We live in a similar area with a similar problem.

I'm not going to be drawn in any further, I'm not sure my already strained stress levels and barely concealed rage (unconcealed if you ask the wife) can take any more.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

[daffy]

I've lived here for a little over 5 years now, and the problem has got significantly worse in the last two of those. Back in 2014 it was hardly noticeable, but now it's endemic, not just on my local lanes, but on many routes.

I suspect it is, as is usual, down to a minority of morons, as is perhaps witnessed by the sameness of the daily deposits. For instance, I think one person has a serious Stella drink problem, as the cans are always dumped in roughly the same place each day. Similarly, two weeks back I walked another lane and noticed a green glass bottle on the verge, and picked it up. By the time I'd finished picking up identical ex-sherry bottles over the next two days over a 400 yard stretch of the lane, I had gathered 24 of them! They had obviously been dumped, one at a time, over a lengthy period, as some needed extricating from the depths of the long grass that had wrapped around them. Maybe a closet alcoholic?

Last week the issue led me to ring the Council to get them to collect the five neatly tied bin bags full of household rubbish that had been thrown in a roadside ditch. Picking up the daily bits though will never again be an affordable or achievable Council service, as it was back when I was a lad and the chap with his green painted metal two wheeled cart festooned with brooms and shovel would make his weekly rounds.

I'm quite prepared - though not happy at all - to continue to pick up the rubbish each time I go out, but I have of course major issues with it all.

Firstly, it is impossible to stop. Fines can now be levied against people throwing rubbish out is cars, but you rarely see them doing it, and if I'm walking the lane, car occupants are unlikely to commit the offence while I'm in sight.

Secondly, there is the rubbish I don't retrieve. There is plenty more hereabouts in the ditches and drainage dikes that are the feature of the Lincolnshire fenlands, and the 'strongarm' brigade are hurling their detritus beyond these into the fields. This time of year it's clearly visible, though sticky clay soils that have been recently ploughed, tilled and sown do not invite my boots. In the summer the cans and crap lay hidden until the harvest, or till the hedges are cut (mascerated?) in late autumn, when the thousand crimes of the warm days are revealed.

Thirdly, how do local people manage to walk by all this rubbish without thinking about removing it, even when, as is common, it is right outside their house! I'm not the only one who walks the lanes here, as many do, with or without dogs, yet in know of only two other people who bother.

Daily I hear or read of problems with the World's environment, and our Man-made problems. What chance have Governments and Society got in addressing those major issues if those who despoil at the grass-verge level, and those who daily choose to do nothing about it, continue in the manner they seemingly increasingly do today.

Rant over. I'll go back to sleep now before I get banned from here for being an activist!

Or is it already too late!

[Paulwhitt20]

Thank you for doing your bit for the environment.

In our town there is a group of volunteers who also go round picking up the litter, but I can't understand the mentality of people who just throw their rubbish out of the car.

Perhaps some of the community service "placements" could be picking litter, but then it is probably considered to dangerous these days.

[port perran]

Further to my previous reply, another situation occurred just after Christmas and has just come to mind again.
The road outside our cottage at the bottom of the garden is quiet - particularly at night.
We were reading in bed, heard a car pass and then, a few moments later a high pitched beeping going off every five seconds or so.
We assumed a car alarm - "It'll stop in a minute".
20 minutes later (11.45 ish) with the irritating bleeping still going on, up I get, dress annd set off to investigate in the darkness with a torch.
Turns out someone had dumped a black rubbish bag, completely full but which also contained a smoke alarm going off. Luckily, said smoke alarm was right on the top so I could remove the battery, cary the bag home and put it out with our rubbish next day.
Why, oh why, would someone be carrying a rubbish sack with a bleeping smoke alarm in their car late at night which they obviously intended to dump somewhere?
The mind boggles 

[Bealman]

Yes, the mindset (or more likely lack of) is mind boggling.

It's not limited to England's green and pleasant land either.

Chez Bealman lies a little off a reasonably busy road (not unbearably so) at the bottom of a small hill, and we are accustomed to finding fast food packaging at the top of the driveway. This has obviously been thrown from passing cars.