A genuine question...

Hard_Up_Hester

I live on a canal boat on the Kennet and Avon, I've just bought a litter picking stick so I can pick up other people's carp.

PipneyJane

Like you, @thriftwizard, I am horrified by both the number of "privileged" idiots on the beaches yesterday and the mess they leave behind.  Beyond educating the children, the only thing I can think of is one of those public interest TV campaigns, perhaps with a group of pretty, middle-class children playing on a filthy, littered beach, building castles out of the rubbish and handling faeces.

When I first arrived in London, 31 years ago, I was appalled at the amount of litter in the street.  I was told it was because all the bins had been taken away during the IRA bombing campaigns. As far as I can see, very few have been replaced, and none on the Underground.

- Pip

[Deleted User]

My answer to the OPs question is that these people have no respect for themselves and no respect for anything else.

thriftwizard

Somehow it feels angry to me. Certainly some of the comments I read online after the debacle at Durdle Door a few weeks back were; they were angry to have travelled for several hours in sweltering heat to find they had to walk down a 300ft cliff to a beach with no facilities - no loos, no ice-cream shack, no tapas bars & sun-beds. Comments on the local news last night made it clear that some of them are angry they can't book their normal summer holidays abroad, and they're resentful that we have all this on our doorsteps but we're not exactly welcoming them with open arms this year. There's clearly puzzlement that we local yokels aren't over-pleased to see them & their money, after all the years we've been moaning that the visitors just weren't coming any longer. But there's absolutely no recognition that there's anything at all wrong with the way that some of them were behaving...

eandjsmum

Last Thursday evening I went for my usual walk when I got to a park by the river it was full of people not social distancing. They were having bbqs, picnics ect. The bins were full and some people had clearly had a picnic and when they had finished they just got up and left their rubbish where it was. I also went to another open space high up over looking the river , there were bins there but they were full to bursting and that park too was busy.
 I would dearly love to go to the beaches round here as we have some fab ones, but that would be impossible because they were too crowded. I've booked a holiday to Dorset this year but I'm worried that the place will be packed.
One of the beaches near where I live is privately owned, it has a car park. The owners have put in place a system whereby if you want to go to that beach you have to use the car park , book and pre pay for your space you cannot turn up and pay on the day as security will turn them away. I've seen pictures of the beach taken last week and there was no crowding. 
What with all the beach crowding and protests there will be a second wave of the pandemic.
I think that when they started to lift lockdown the government should have placed a travel limit like the Welsh government that would have stopped a lot of beach crowding that has been seen over the past few weeks.

thriftwizard

eandjsmum, PM me before your holiday & I'll give you some family-friendly suggestions for places to go in Dorset & nearby that shouldn't be horrendously crowded because they're not really on the tourist radar. I don't know whether Brambling & gwynlas might also have some suggestions? And perhaps Nonnadiluca over the border in the New Forest too?

I do think that some kind of restrictions would be in order. Maybe staying in your own county, or within a 50-mile radius of your home address, unless you have actual overnight accommodation booked? I know some of the volunteer beach cleaners; they say that the littering & loutishness have never been this bad, even in high season, so it is possible that some of it is sheer bottled-up frustration after spending hours sweltering in traffic jams, arriving to find few facilities & entertainments on offer & knowing you've got to do it all over again in a few hours. Which doesn't excuse it at all, but makes it a little more understandable at least.

Brambling

Happy to eandjsmum if you give us some ideas on what you like to do 🙂 

I'm probably more annoyed at the moment as I have a sister seriously ill in intensive care in Dorset (not CV19)  and for obviously reasons we are staying away, we wouldn't be allowed to visit her anyway but dread the thought of having to do that journey at the moment with even more people on the roads than normal for the time of years. 

I did see a interview where the guy said 'I don't know anyone who has had the virus so I don't think it's a really a problem' ???  Personally I don't see a day on Bournemouth beach worth the risk 

GreyQueen

Littering and loutishness has always horrified me. I was very strictly brought up in respect of always taking anything you've used to a litter bin or, if one isn't available/ is overflowing, taking it home with me. Hell, I even carted recyclables home from a YHA hostel because they didn't appear to have any recycling facilities set up.

I don't buy that it is an outflowing of frustration over being cooped up/denied access to foriegn holidays. I put it down to bad upbringings for a couple of generations at least. Someone I know who starts work early on a Saturday on a street which sees (pre-Covid lockdown) a lot of foot traffic from the nightclub area, tells me that the street, pre cleaners, is ankle-deep in litter, you literally wade in it.

Perhaps the answer is to put checkpoints on these areas and itemsise what people are taking onto the beach and what they are taking off. With names and addresses. If you take a 4 pack of beer on, you take 4 empties and a plastic collar off. Somehow 'lost' those items? Oh dear, swingeing on-the-spot fine to fund beach cleaning.

They call Singapore the 'fine city' because you get fined for a lot of things which we describe under the catchall term 'anti-social' behaviour. As a result, it is far more pleasant than most places here. I think if you keep making things right after the badly-behaved have made them nasty, you'll be doing it til the end of time.

jinty54

Good morning 
I think that its in the upbringing and culture  I chased and caught my Dettol wipe after it blew out of my hand 

I always take my rubbish home As do my kids and grandkids but in streets that i pass there are garden that look like part of council tip but the occupants don't care Yes someone one day will come and do the work for them so they do not need to care  Its a sad reflection on how some folk live 

I will second the comment about Singapore No litter no one smoking where they should not be Lovely place We were there only for a day but would love to  able to go back

I have enjoyed reading your comments as I am pretty much like minded 

monnagran

I think that the matter of litter and social responsibility has been neglected for too long.  There needs to be an intensive campaign put into place pronto.  The 'KEEP BRITAIN TIDY'  slogan should be thrust down people's throats until they gag.  A stern warning about the dropping of litter should be included in every commercial break on television, plastered on the sides of public vehicles, stuck up on hoardings everywhere, school children have it hammered home until everyone emerges from 12 years of education thoroughly brainwashed AND THEN there should be swingeing penalties for any transgression.
If I ruled the world.
The army should be brought in if necessary to aid our beleaguered police force and people found to be behaving in an anti-social way should be put into the stocks and be pelted with their own disgusting filth by outraged townsfolk.
Well, maybe that's a tad too far, but only just.

Must go and wipe the foam from my mouth.