Litter bugs!

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groynk

234 posts

Master Geek

#775765 6-Mar-2013 16:41

DarthKermit: Thanks for sharing guys. Sounds like a lot of people should know better but don't give a s**t.

I'd like to thank whoever left a vanilla coke bottle in the gutter outside my place today. At least we have recycle bins I can quickly chuck it into.

Is it the same size as the one from the first day photo? You may have a serial litter bug-er!

(It's the best coke btw, I make it at least two that like it)

bfginger

1267 posts

Uber Geek

#775797 6-Mar-2013 17:34

Nearly all the littering comes from students. I know this because the volume of litter on the streets collapses whenever they go on holiday. Cigarette packets, fast food wrappers, coca cola and alcohol bottles are the main offenders. Most of it seems to be thrown out of car windows at night.

The quantities involved are immense. Much of it goes down the drain on the side of the road and goes into the harbour.

When rubbish collection becomes user pays (pay per kg?) it's going to become much worse and it'll be illegal to put litter in a bin other than your own.

trig42:
sonyxperiageek: Well we have a bit more rubbish than yours at my street because of the public park there with no public rubbish bins!

I read somewhere that they were deliberately not putting bins in parks as they had researched it and found that there was less litter in parks without bins than parks with bins. The theory being that if there are bins there, they either get full (and people still try and use them, or dump rubbish around them) or people throw rubbish AT the bin rather than IN the bin.

Having vsited a binless former ARC park I don't care much for that theory. A location becomes a designated bin and people dumb rubbish there. Other people who would pick up litter don't because there isn't anywhere to put it.

dickytim

2514 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#776007 7-Mar-2013 07:13

BlueShift:
DarthKermit: Thanks for sharing guys. Sounds like a lot of people should know better but don't give a s**t.

I'd like to thank whoever left a vanilla coke bottle in the gutter outside my place today. At least we have recycle bins I can quickly chuck it into.

Shouldn't be too hard to track down the one person in NZ who drinks vanilla coke...

No it wasn't me...

Mark

1653 posts

Uber Geek

#776237 7-Mar-2013 13:59

Personally I think smokers are the biggest litters around ... smoke their little fags then just chuck the stub in the gutter, or out the car window ...
Go to the smoking areas around a building and it's a stub ridden stinking sh*thole .. really weird because some of the people who do it are all neat and tidy with everything else, seems they think cigarettes are not litter and they are oblivious to how nasty they make them smell.

Bung

6477 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#776251 7-Mar-2013 14:26

Worst I've ever seen were the gardens alongside the NEC factory in Melbourne. At a distance they seemed to have a tan coloured mulch, up close it was 100% cigarette butt.

zANavAShi

119 posts

Master Geek

#776258 7-Mar-2013 14:30

One of my slum neighbours is moving out today (yay!) and dumped a trailer load full of household furniture junk on the kerbside of the park across the road. I popped over and scavenged some fairly decent recyclables out of the pile before I phoned the council - enough bits to build a good-sized workshop bench in my hobby room in fact (and saved me having to buy a workbench of Trade me!)

I'm on a small street with a fairly active friendly neighbourhood watch group (they run some great street BBQ's too!) which I promptly joined when I moved here 2mths ago. We have a few clusters of state houses on one fork of the street and the occasional tagging in the park, but overall a pretty decent street to live on. I think a feeling of belonging to a neighbourhood is certainly good motivation to practise good citizenship.

I'll probably irritate the rate-paying members when I say this... but it's my belief that rubbish and waste management should not be on a user pays system and be regarded as a free public service. Human beings are a basically lazy animal whom if you want them to do the right thing you have to make it is easy as possible for them to do so.

I know this is true for me in my domestic life also. In the days before I realised the wisdom of having little waste baskets strategically placed at arms length in all rooms of the house I tended to accumulate little piles of trash with the intention of ferrying it to the main household bin next time my caffeine depletion necessitated a trip to the espresso machine.

We probably all did our share of sloppy citizenry in our mispent youths, and we've just got a new generation of the same which annoy us the same way we annoyed the elders of our generation. Best we can do is model good behaviour ourselves with grace and dignity (rather than resent and blame) and hope the good deeds will inspire others to do the same.

Just my two cents worth :o)

vexxxboy

4243 posts

Uber Geek

#776272 7-Mar-2013 14:48

trig42:
sonyxperiageek: Well we have a bit more rubbish than yours at my street because of the public park there with no public rubbish bins!

I read somewhere that they were deliberately not putting bins in parks as they had researched it and found that there was less litter in parks without bins than parks with bins. The theory being that if there are bins there, they either get full (and people still try and use them, or dump rubbish around them) or people throw rubbish AT the bin rather than IN the bin.

They tried something different in Stockholm? where they made rubbish bins fun to put rubbish in, They added sound effects, so everytime you put your rubbish in it sounded like you were putting it in a large cavern and it took 4-5 seconds to reach the bottom, They found people , especially kids, going out of there way to use them

Common sense is not as common as you think.

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BurningBeard

1030 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#776332 7-Mar-2013 16:12

Mark: Personally I think smokers are the biggest litters around ... smoke their little fags then just chuck the stub in the gutter, or out the car window ...

My brother, a smoker, just realised he was one of those. He actually paid attention to the butts outside his workplace and realised they were all his. He disposes of them properly now, no matter where he is.

My very metal Doctor Who theme

BurningBeard

1030 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#776334 7-Mar-2013 16:13

vexxxboy: They tried something different in Stockholm? where they made rubbish bins fun to put rubbish in, They added sound effects, so everytime you put your rubbish in it sounded like you were putting it in a large cavern and it took 4-5 seconds to reach the bottom, They found people , especially kids, going out of there way to use them

That's a brilliant idea!

Wouldn't work in the rancid neighbourhood I live in. Somebody would find a way to make it melt.

My very metal Doctor Who theme

Cambo

107 posts

Master Geek

#776339 7-Mar-2013 16:26

BurningBeard: I live in a busy street in Phillipstown, Christchurch.

Well hello from Frederick St, Waltham :D

I might undertake a census tonight and report back.

BurningBeard

1030 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#776349 7-Mar-2013 16:56

Cambo: Well hello from Frederick St, Waltham :D

I might undertake a census tonight and report back.

Hello from P-Town!

I used to live just off Frederick St (Isabella Place.)

My very metal Doctor Who theme

groynk

234 posts

Master Geek

#776354 7-Mar-2013 17:06

BurningBeard:
Mark: Personally I think smokers are the biggest litters around ... smoke their little fags then just chuck the stub in the gutter, or out the car window ...

My brother, a smoker, just realised he was one of those. He actually paid attention to the butts outside his workplace and realised they were all his. He disposes of them properly now, no matter where he is.

I am interested, what is the proper way?
I never know what to say when I see someone do it, because I can't think of an alternative that doesn't risk burning themselves or setting a rubbish bin on fire.

BurningBeard

1030 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#776397 7-Mar-2013 18:58

groynk:I am interested, what is the proper way?

In the case of his work, he stubs it out and puts it in a jar to throw out later.
If he's out and about and cannot do that, he keeps the butt and takes it home... it's stinky, but I've yet to encounter a smoker that doesn't smell like an ashtray.

My very metal Doctor Who theme

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