England’s Rubbish Problem
I spend countless hours travelling on trains and pounding the streets of England. Mainly in and around London, where I’m sure the problem is amplified. But England really is full of rubbish, everywhere I see small mounds of trash. It makes you wonder where the respect for the country, nature and others has gone.
It is one of my pet hates and to that extent I can’t honestly ever remember a time where I purposely threw litter on the floor. Unless I take into account when walking in woods and discarding of an apple core.
Surely the little problem is a solvable one. All it requires is a change in human behaviour. As a country we mostly eradicated the acceptance of spitting on the street. I detest those that do it now. It took me a while not to feel sickened by the South Koreans hocking up phlem but this is a classic example of societal acceptance. If as a society we made it more unacceptable I’m sure the problem would resolve itself, at least it would be a start.
Broken Window syndrome. Rubbish that already exist must be cleared up. I’m talking everywhere, that means in particular on waste land around train tracks and erroneous land. This shouldn’t be difficult if we were to use one largely up tapped resource; prisoners. Some of the 60k inmates that are entertained at her majesty pleasure, surely could roam the streets in chain gangs, giving something back to the communities which they have harmed.
Industry must also be pressurized to change, packaging volumes and turn to (faster) bio degradable material. If packaging was reduced by a serious percentage, then it stands to reason litter would automatically reduce proportionally. If like in nature we could package (food) products in bio degradable material which would take the form of peelings of fruit, then again, discarded waste, would take days not years to degrade. This would also lead to a vast reduction in our reliability on land fill and waste shipping.
I surely do think this a solvable problem, which would require a minimal effort from all but benefit everyone hugely. Fixing fundamental problems such as this in society would surely hit Esteem in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, where respect plays such an important part. Hitting such an important need in the hierarchy must confirm this to be a worthy cause.
Time to go and see if there is any rubbish in front of the house.
This is one of the things that really sets us apart from mainland Europe IMO. As I mentioned before, I spent a lot of time in Germany growing up, and I always refer to it as “just like a cleaner Britain”, it really is. It’s just so nice walking down the street without seeing people’s rubbish everywhere. I totally agree on the prisoners/community service idea. Works in America? I do think industries are changing though, supermarkets especially seem to be actively seeking out ways of using less packaging these days.
As for spitting, I feel that’s worse in England at the moment than it’s ever been. Up North you have the ‘chavs’ spitting all over the place, and in London you have Somalians with their habitual flemming all over the pavement. Foul behaviour, but as you say, it’s societal acceptance (and culture)
It’s true, Germany is definitely cleaner, even Berlin with all of it’s graffiti still manages to hold tidier streets. Seem to remember Paris as a particularly bad city for litter as well. Change social acceptance, change behaviour.
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