During a question and answer session at a local school environmental issues dominated the exchanges about public policy as usual.
The two most important environmental questions they raised were plastic in the  oceans and the need for more trees. I agreed with them about the importance of these matters.
Plastic in the oceans raise difficult questions both about responsibility and about who can remedy the problem.
I argued that the main blame must rest on all those people who threw the plastic away in an irresponsible manner in the first  place. In the U.K. we combat this with laws against litter by adults, and with strong social pressures on parents and teachers to tell children not to litter. Some Other  countries need to educate people against littering. The U.K. also spends taxpayer money on clearing up the litter where people do offend. Verges, streets and public places are regularly swept clean and the debris taken care of. More taxpayers money is spent on refuse collection, recycling and safe disposal so our plastic waste should not end up in rivers or the sea, even where it has been discarded wrongly.
In some other countries there is less pressure on people to avoid littering and a less good back up system to intercept litter before it finds it way via a river into the oceans. There are also bad boat crews who litter the oceans directly. This is especially difficult to police.
I explained that the U.K. and other rich countries use overseas aid to promote programmes for better refuse handling and for cleansing waterways. We cannot require other countries to do this. We have to persuade and encourage.
I set out how the U.K. government is promoting more woodlands, with local and National examples of tree planting. I also pointed out that if we continue to need more homes for more people there will be some counter examples where woods are removed to build on the land.
November 6, 2021
Councils clear up litter regularly ? Really ???
As an environmentalist living near rivers I go out once a week with a flexi tub and pick-up stick and do a four hour clear up.
I rarely see a council sweeper. Maybe twice in the 8 years I’ve lived in this street ?
Anyway.
– The vast majority of litter is from stuff consumed by young people, high energy drinks cans seem to feature a lot. Sugary sweets wrappers and sandwich cartons too – of a weekend burger cartons.
– my pick-up yesterday included 8 masks which had been dropped in the street.
– there has been a marked increase in dog turds wrapped in bags and left on the pavement or shoved in hedges (No. Me neither.)
– complete bags of containers (of a certain burger chain, to remain nameless) spread by birds, foxes and by car impacts spread up the road. There is no outlet near here so one assumes that it is part of the phenomenon that what goes in thru a car window goes out thru a car window and the slovenly and disrespectful attitude towards food -i.e not being prepared to get out of a car to collect it means a person won’t be arsed to find a bin either – means that the Drive Thru business needs a litter tax slapped on it hard. Not lovin’ it … and this is by FAR the most frequent brand that I find during my clear ups and its impact can be felt for literally MILES from the originating business.
But yes. Young people are the worst and I notice litter is much less during school holidays in the streets but gets worse in the parks.
Slightly off topic.
Perhaps the young people who bunked off school to join Ms Thunberg could start their Greenism now. No heating allowed at home, second hand clothes from now on, no plastic wrapped sweeties or drinks, no mobile and no lifts in the car… I guarantee once they felt the true cost of Boris’s plans they’d crack in a week.
November 6, 2021
Perhaps it would be a good idea for local government to re-introduce the Keep Britain Tidy campaign?
November 7, 2021
Councils built land fill sites near river ways (over a thousand according to BBC) which are now being eroded and going in the sea and rivers!! Why are they not forced to clear it up?
November 6, 2021
NLA +1
November 7, 2021
Those who bunked off school were allowed by the Johnsonâs socialist govt. just like last week it was announced children will be brainwashed with the green agenda! On top of the Marxist Sex and Relationship Act brainwashing children of tender years a boy can be a girl! Putin called out it out as a crime against humanity. Yes, Putin! Sadly he is correct.
Major calling out Johnsonâs govt on standards! Major the PM of sleaze after promoting a mantra of back to basics while sleaze was all around him!
November 6, 2021
+1
Oh no! The dog poo in bags is all chucked into our garden.
Chucked back and forth for several months.
Then we put it on the grass verge and it disappears cos I think the perp with dog then realises it is traceable!
And takes it home.
November 6, 2021
Oh andâŠTHANK YOU SO MUCH GOVERNMENTS WHO ENDORSED BUY TO LET!!
We get general rubbish chucked into our garden from next door.
Shoes, slippers, headbands,blankets,bits of food, balloons,cans,bread,bunting and wrappings from every product under the sun. And several million balls, but they can be thrown back.
Lucky us.
November 6, 2021
Be careful. It is also an offence to put litter in the street even if it has been chucked in your garden first. It is your responsibility to deal with it.
November 6, 2021
Very covertly.
But thanks for the warning.
We dealt with all chucked over rubbish for years.
But since we suffer 24/7 from antisocial behaviour we donât feel inclined to be the only law abiding mugs any more.
November 7, 2021
We don’t just get dog poo in bags deposited in our garden, also nappies (not in bags) along with the usual kiddy detritus.
It should not be my responsibility, nor that of some poorly paid litter picker, to deal with such bio-hazardous waste.
There should be very harsh fines for littering, which seem to have worked for Singapore. Even harsher penalties should be in place for spitting, urinating and deficating in inappropriate places.
ut there should also be harsh penalties for organisations that are inconsiderate in their packaging which promote wastage, prevent reuse, recycling or ready disposal.
November 6, 2021
I found it particularly galling to read that the Police were collecting the litter thrown about by the Insult Britain loons, with no charges brought for littering. One law for them etc.
November 6, 2021
I do wonder about perfectly good food being left on the street. Why would anyone buy it if they didn’t intend to eat it?
Then I notice this food is left conveniently where dogs might find it, and I wonder if it has been laced with rat poison by people who don’t like dogs.
Maybe I’m being paranoid.
November 6, 2021
Exactly go back to heating just one room and sharing an inch bath water once a week perhaps.
Andrew Bailey Governor of the Bank of England was asked about the inflationary impact of net zero. He said they had already seem impacts of âclimate changeâ on inflation. Wrong mate you have seen the impact of this governments insane, climate alarmist, net zero over reaction to climate change.
This the man who while at the FCA who gave us one size fits all personal overdraft rates of 4o-78% regardless of the clientâs credit risk. Yet this man is suitable to be head of the BoE? Where are the fair competition authorities do we not have any? A history graduate it seems.
One thing properly run banks should always do is price according to risk. This policy effectively bans overdrafts for sensible clients as rates far too high. So why ban them? Overdraft are very useful and flexible for some people. My two went from base plus 2.5 to 39.9% and even 78% charges as a daily fee so the rate was not even quotes. Effectively they were both withdrawn as now far too expensive to use.
November 6, 2021
A week? I reckon 24 hours would do it.
November 6, 2021
@No Longer Anonymous – “Councils clear up litter regularly ? Really ???” not here in Wokingham, it has gone from a clean ultra efficient Council to left leaning don’t care one.
November 6, 2021
Thank you for doing this clean up.
It is ironic that many children and teens donât see theyâre part of the waste and litter problem. As you say it is easy enough to identify the waste items and that company does employ a litter van to walk the nearby vicinity but the waste thrown out of car windows they canât help with and that is the responsibility of the litter bug. The teens can spout their green credentials taught in school but they donât actually take responsibility for it themselves. I wonder how much litter their Greta march generated the other day Iâd bet a lot of clean up for a service already stretched in Glasgow. A City that has suffered for years from litter thrown from cars and not enough staff to collect it.
November 6, 2021
To be honest I love doing it, though it’s sad that I have to. I often wonder if people just took responsibility for picking up outside their homes regardless of whose left the litter ? We’d be in a much better place. It’s as much a reflection of people who are prepared to leave it as those who drop it.
November 7, 2021
No, it is a reflection solely on those that litter – why should I be responsible because someone could be bothered to put their litter in a bin or take it home.
November 6, 2021
Everyone has been talking about the abundance of litter. It reminded me of my school days when in free periods we where given poles with a nail at its bottom by the caretaker and told to pick up the litter in the school field and surrounding public roads.
Can you imagine school children being asked to do that todayâŠ.theyâd need parents permission, watch a safety video, complete a risk assessment, wear hi-vis, wear protective gloves, have constant teacher supervision, only allowed to collect within school boundary, litter in special bins and cleaning; ensuring equal opportunities and climate change discussion throughoutâŠ.and after all that the pupil could refuse as its against their human rights
November 6, 2021
If you care so little as to what you put in your very own body, as to eat the stuff, of which we see so often the wrappers strewn about, then you’re hardly likely to bother much about what you leave lying around in the rest of physical existence, are you?
You’re not so likely to find avocado skins and empty saison ale bottles, are you, on the other hand?
November 6, 2021
Yes. And they shouldn’t be given the vote either for this reason… though many want them to have it (for the same reasons that they have placed a child as the figurehead of a political movement.)
If it’s bright blue or a major element of substances used for cleaning things and blowing stuff up then don’t eat or drink it.
November 6, 2021
As for avocados … haven’t you heard ? One of the least green foodstuffs on the planet !
November 6, 2021
It doesn’t divide on age.
It divides on knowledge and on sense.
November 6, 2021
Oldsters will remember when you paid a deposit on your Tizer bottle and got your 3d back when you redeemed it.
November 6, 2021
hold on…I heard that was a new idea to be adopted at cop26
November 6, 2021
I welcome your efforts to persuade the poor on benefits to switch to avocados etc.
November 6, 2021
NLA.. Never a truer word spoken. I can’t count the number of times I’ve followed school kids who are dropping litter as they go. These are the very disciples of Greta. They are some of the worst offenders. As for plastic. ….all the time manufacturers are making things from it., we will always have a problem. Some things are recycled but not everything. As fast as we dispose of it, more is bring used.
John Major was having a right go over the behaviour of your party today John. I couldn’t help but agree. It has become a nightmare with no real leadership. It’s time for a drastic change of leader and course.
November 6, 2021
I live near a park, laid out for several football pitches, which sustain weekend amateur matches, played mainly by adults with family and friends watching.
The litter left behind is appalling.
I can only assume that they treat the park as they do a stadium, where they watch professional matches, and which are knee-deep in rubbish by final whistle.
It is not the children’s or youth matches at all which cause this on the other hand.
November 6, 2021
NLH – I don’t say it’s just children. It’s mainly people under 30 for sure though. “Young people” is the phrase I used in my original comment.
November 6, 2021
There was also a musical concert in the park.
There was almost no rubbish left by the many young who attended.
So it would appear that devotees of arts and music are more civic-minded than football enthusiasts on that limited evidence.
November 7, 2021
NLH Glastonbury
November 8, 2021
Maybe some of the attendees at Glastonbury also follow football?
November 6, 2021
John Major talking about the Tories being in a mess,
Teapot and kettle
He was the one responsible for one of the biggest messes in Tory history.
Remember Maastricht and the colleagues he called and treated as b*stards
And remember the damage he did before and particularly after Brexit when he was instrumental in the remain “surrender” and reversal of Brexit campaign.
Not just dangerous to the Tory party, but completely democratic in seeking to overturn the democratic instructions to Parliament of 52% of the people and apparently one of the biggest percentage voter turnouts in history of this nation.
He should shrink away in shame and be expelled from public affairs ( along with a number of others ) in what I call a conspiracy against the will of the people
November 6, 2021
Sorry typo “undemocratic”
November 6, 2021
PS, This year, kids, it’s a pencil case, a protractor and a ruler for Christmas. You’ll also get an orange and some Brazil nuts.
We’ll be getting the old Monopoly board out, the TV’s on the blink.
November 6, 2021
Sir John’s final paragraph mentioned tree planting.
I agree it is good policy, but I wonder how long does it take for a tree to become mature enough to capture the same amount of CO2 that a whopper from a rain forest or elsewhere would have captured.
Could this tree planting be yet another False Dawn sort of fiasco, virtue signalling really?
November 7, 2021
Look to the oceans. The pulldown of CO2 is immense and happens very quickly, but it is recycled back to gas equally quickly. Exploiting that process is the way to deal with carbon sequestration. Our planet is ruled by Oceana, not Gaia.
JF
November 6, 2021
No John, when we were young there USED TO BE social pressure not to litter. The only litter you saw on the streets was ice lolly sticks and cigarette butts. Today’s young people think that it is fine to leave their fast food remnants on a bus seat or in the hedge of a house they are passing. Part of the problem is the general decline in public behaviour, but there is also the increased amount of packaging and laws that encourage people to take food away rather than eat it on the premises. You often find that litter bins are not emptied frequently enough. In Finland you can exchange metal cans for food vouchers, and so all the beggars are out searching for cans and they get tidied up that way.
November 6, 2021
@beresford; When we were young there used to be plentiful street waste bins, they seemed to be on every corner within a conurbation area, even motorists who pulled into out of town and countryside lay-by often found a well maintained waste bin or two present, but such things cost money to empty and maintain so when in the 1980s the govt wanted to find money to save to allow central and local tax cuts things such as road side waste bins were an easy and early causality (and things got even worse when LA cleansing and refuge services had to be put out to competitive tender). Also lets not forget that a lot of plastics are not food containers or even household products [1], back in the 1970s only chemicals that had to use plastic containers did so, these days just about everything is in a plastic container, even non water based paints.
November 6, 2021
+1
November 6, 2021
Bins stopped being plentiful when the IRA started to put bombs in them Jerry
November 7, 2021
@NS; Not quite, and you’re out by at least ten years anyway, those waste bins made out of metal and/or wood that remained by 1993 (the year of the Warrington bombings) were often replaced by new bins made from either plastic or fiberglass, the latter made to look like cast iron.
November 6, 2021
When I was at secondary school, we were forbidden to eat in the street while wearing school uniform. If we were spotted and reported by a Prefect, we would be punished by a detention or a reprimand in the full school Assembly.
But then there was also a general atmosphere of the young usually being taught respect for others which has been chucked out of the window by the cognoscenti for most of my adulthood – don’t open doors for women, don’t give up your seat for the elderly, do display and detail every aspect of your private life and body on social media and the MSM ~ and then wonder why the public can be so viciously and publicly rude to all and sundry.
November 6, 2021
Indeed I have seen many car drivers and passengers just throwing out all their fast food containers of the car windows as they go along. The whole gang clearly thinking this is just normal behaviour!
November 6, 2021
@beresford – they are of course lead by Governments attitude to ‘law and order’, rules are for others not the ‘millennials’. We mustn’t offend. A Government with a half hearted attitude of do as I say not as ‘I Do’, but OK maybe if you do it as well it will be OK – so is it any surprise there is a rise in a similar attitude elsewhere.
November 6, 2021
Beresford, perhaps these fast food outlets could offer a similar exchange a bag full of their squashed cartons for a free burger.
November 6, 2021
Perhaps we could encourage the expansion of a certain rodent population as they have done so successfully on Wimbledon Common.
November 6, 2021
You mean the Wombles are back.?
November 6, 2021
When travelling across America sections of roads are sponsored by local organisations even prisons to keep the roads and surrounding areas clean.
But the biggest incentive against waste was raising the fine for offenders from $50 to $500 and it seemed the one’s reporting the offences with proof got a percentage. Not sure if that was just local policy.
November 6, 2021
@turboterrier; The USA still has a community spirit that is all but missing now in the UK, the sort of patriotism that is so obvious in their respect for their national flag and also (most…) individual state flags but it runs far deeper, such as the accepted (legal?) requirement that citizens who are able bodied help keep the public verges and sidewalks clear and any grass cut. As for fines, the UK has pretty draconian fines for caught/proven fly tippers but the heavy fines have not stopped the scourge of fly tipping, in fact as more and more ‘environmental’ controls have been put in place (and thus the cost of legal disposal increases) the problems has got worse, after all very few criminals commit crime believing they will get caught!
November 7, 2021
Flt tipping increased as a result of Brown’s landfill tax. The tax is an escalating one, as is the litter problem.
November 7, 2021
@DennisA; Yes the problem increased, but it did not start with Brownâs landfill tax, it started when the previous conservative govt allowed private companies to take over previously LA run services and amenity tips. Back in the late 1970s it was not uncommon for councils to offer the free collection and disposal of larger domestic [1] items such as fridges, freezers and settees etc – if such a service is offered by the waste contractor it’s a chargeable extra, go figure why such items ended up fly-tipped.
[1] even commercial waste was not unknown, subject to a suitable tip given to the refuge lorry team, not that I condone such practice but surely better than the alternate crime?!
November 7, 2021
Those services were never free.
They were always paid for by ratepayers or by CT payers even if there were not an actuality charge to the user.
All fly-tipping is caused by fly-tippers.
I won’t even try to blame these Tories for that.
November 8, 2021
@NLH; Duh?! But the householder was/is the ratepayer or CT payer, so yes those collection services were ‘free’ (as in already paid for), now they have to pay both CT and an additional charge for the disposal of larger items.
“All fly-tipping is caused by fly-tippers.”
Well state the blinding obvious why not, but what causes people to fly tip, and no it is not all down to those who offer illegal waste collection services, many single items of household detritus seem to fall from trailers or roof-racks far to frequently… Our local amenity tip (when open) has a low bar that is meant to stop traders with vans but it also stops many private households using roof-racks or MPV style vehicles from accessing the site.
November 6, 2021
No-one likes a grass !
November 6, 2021
Good idea Turbo.
November 6, 2021
No problem Sir John:
1. Stop shipping recycling waste overseas for processing
2. Stop burning 25 million tress each year at Drax
November 6, 2021
@corky; The solution to plastics is not to stop waste plastics being shipped overseas for recycling, it is either to stop recycling, simply go back to burying it in deep landfill or better still stop using so much plastic, soft drinks, ketchup’s, even milk could all go back to using glass bottles, along with easy means of returning any reusable bottles. If Govt can place a tax on the sugar, salt or alcohol content of a product why not a tax on what it is packaged in?
November 6, 2021
Actually, the best thing to do with plastic is BURN IT in waste-to-energy incinerators (as I have previously discussed – pay attention at the back of the class!). This kills two birds with one stone: eliminating the waste and producing much needed energy. Plastic is made from oil, remember, so makes an excellent fuel.
November 6, 2021
@X-Tory; Not sure that is a solution, at least not a cheap option, burning certain plastics release many more pollutants than burning crude oil its self and the latter is pretty toxic! Far simpler would be to stop using so much plastic, then burn the oil that wo0udl have been used to make the plastics…
November 7, 2021
The best thing to do isn’t to simply burn it. That is just the lazy thing to do and it devalues the material and therefore promotes inconsiderate behaviour even further.
November 6, 2021
Very sensible suggestions, Jerry. The many bottling plants that have been closed down in recent years would have to be reopened, creating lots more jobs in this country. Local authorities could be encouraged to set up bottle return centres for industry to re-use. Financial incentives would need to be given to industry and retailers to prefer glass to plastic, which would probably require new legislation. For this, a lot of joined-up thinking would be necessary on… the government’s part. This government. Ah yes, I see the problem now.
November 7, 2021
“Overseas” isn’t accepting waste plastic for “recycling” anymore, they haven’t for some years.
The answer is to use plastics appropriately and recycle appropriately.
November 7, 2021
Most waste can be dealt with by using it as fuel for electricity generation. The resultant ash can then be buried. Recycling is a nice idea, but much of the recovered material is plastic which is just oil. What do we burn in CCGTs?
JF
November 6, 2021
Stop thousaof boat people from crossing the channel.
853 yesterday all put in hotel accommodation.
The people are very angry.
November 6, 2021
Vote Leave!!!
Again!!!
Harder!!!
November 6, 2021
There is clearly no political will for this – Boris is far more interested in making you buy an ÂŁ40k electric car, a ÂŁ20k heat pump and pay 4 times the going rate for your electricity or freeze to death if you cannot. Non of which will make any sig. difference to CO2 or to the climate.
November 6, 2021
At this rate 300,000 blokes coming per year by this method alone.
Brexit has failed.
November 7, 2021
“Brexit has failed.”
No. Our politicians are failing. Put the blame where it belongs.
JF
November 6, 2021
Indeed on the trees they are only being used to falsely claim they are zero CO2 and fiddle the figures for political reasons. They actually cause more CO2 than coal and far more than gas. But then CO2 is not a real problem just a ruse. There is no catastrophic climate emergency.
All 6 on Question Time were lefty, climate alarmists as usual for the BBC. One even said the effects of climate change were âinfinitelyâ more expensive than the net zero and other policies. Clearly he does not know what infinitely means. No mate adaptation to climate be it hotter, colder, wetter or dryer is far far cheaper and works. Net zero costs billions and in fact a little more CO2 is probably a net positive.
Nigel Lawson in the Spectator is spot on. â Net zero is a disastrous solution to a nonexistent problemâ
He concludes – âBut whatever the cause of the climate change madness, the effect is clear. While global warming is not a problem, the policies intended to prevent it are a disaster.â And this despite reading PPE Oxon – though I think he was initially going to read maths or Nat Sci if I recall correctly.
November 6, 2021
More CO2 per KWH of electricity generated that is. This on top of all the diesel used to harvest and ship the wood over to Drax. New young coal but good old coal bad seems to be the new mad religion.
November 6, 2021
Excellent comment LL but somehow we have to stop the indoctrination through “education”.
November 7, 2021
Burn the plastic instead.
November 6, 2021
One problem is the day after the recyclable collection is the amount that has come out of bins as they are emptied. Skip lorries still driving around loaded with no netting or covers to the disposal sites. Waste bins left to overflowing. Whatever happened to those supposed to be doing community service being used to assist council personnel? No escaping the fact that the greater the population the greater the waste.
November 6, 2021
@turboterrier; There is no correlational between population numbers and the amount of rubbish left about [1], although there is often a correlational between such rubbish and the amount of rubbish the contracted waste companies/departments leave uncleared/uncollected. Around here the rules state we are meant to leave our rubbish, in black bin-bags, out by the kerbside from 7am on collection day meaning many have no option but to put them out the night before, this allows all the wildlife, feral cats, stray dogs etc to raid the bags for easy pickings, sometimes the entire contents (including soiled nappies…) of the bag is spread down the road or blowing on the wind. Why do we need to put bin-bags kerbside, because it is cheaper to collect.
Basically, we get what we pay for…
[1] Singapore is densely populated, you do not see unconstrained rubbish anywhere!
November 6, 2021
Some people put filthy unwashed food containers in the recycling bags.
This causes foxes, crows, seagulls and stray to tear them apart to get at the scraps, and to scatter the contents.
Where people take care not to do this there is no problem. The food waste bins and general waste bins are pretty animal resistant.
The problem is not recycling, but useless people.
November 6, 2021
Well. That’s a cost and an environmental cost that we didn’t have to worry about before.
Washing containers with tap water.
Metal bins with a heavy lid used to work fine.
November 6, 2021
but they wrecked the backs of the binmen. Thought you would have more sympathy than want to return to that!
November 6, 2021
@NLH; Around here the one thing we do not have problems with is the recycling ‘waste’, which may well include plastics that can not be washed sufficiently to stop vermin attracted, because it is collected direct from the wheelie bin, unlike the general refuse that naturally contains food waste or human byproducts that attract vermin etc. The issue is not what the rubbish/recycling is but how it is stored, collected, sorted and where any supposed reprocessing is done.
November 6, 2021
So why in the UK is taxation in the UK about 3.5 times higher as a % of GDP than Singapore? Appallingly poor and inefficient Government & totally misdirected State Sector I suggest.
November 6, 2021
Open top recycling boxes near rivers. Utter UTTER madness.
November 6, 2021
Turbo. Yes we have to put our plastic etc into open bins and then leave them out for the bin men. If it’s windy then our streets have all the rubbish laying around that’s blown out of the bins.
November 6, 2021
Why don’t you just save it for another day when it’s not windy?
November 6, 2021
It’s the others, NLH, always the others. I phoned the council to complain about open top boxes and they said “Why don’t YOU put a weigh on it ?” to which I told them I do but that other people who don’t care don’t.
In any case. The bin men come of a fixed day and you don’t get a choice as to when you put your rubbish out.
November 6, 2021
@NLH; Because the weather can change between putting the boxes out, going to work, and the collection being made?… Why couldn’t the waste contractor or LA provide closed top bins?
November 6, 2021
NLH. Don’t be stupid. It only gets collected once a fortnight now and all my boxes are full by then. Unlike some I don’t think I can control the wind/climate.
November 6, 2021
Yes pollution of the planet due to laziness, usually but not always the younger generation.
School kids used to use the grass area outside our house for an after school chat and refreshments, then would walk away leaving all their crap behind, even though there was a waste bin across the road.
After 2 days of picking it up I confronted them and pointed out the problem and solution., no notice taken at first, but when done the second time they now use somewhere else to meet and leave their rubbish.
No doubt some of these students are also complaining about green issues, always so easy to blame someone else. I wonder if their parents have the same attitude.
November 6, 2021
A J It is more than likely that they have learned that attitude from their parents.
November 6, 2021
Alan it made me laugh out loud when you said they found somewhere else to meet and litter rather than just use the bin!
November 6, 2021
If an area is clean and tidy then people tend not to drop their litter. Our council does not pick up litter, this is left to an elderly volunteer. Our council doesn’t clear away the weeds from our footpaths, so the area looks unkempt. Our council is removing our grass verges and roadside trees to widen the road which is unnecessary but they have been given a grant. All our council does is increase our taxes and put up their wages. Councils are part of the problem in our country.
November 6, 2021
Latest wheeze from our council is not to cut the grass at all, thus litter even more difficult to spot and clear up.
So called green waste collectors/recyclers never pick up what’s been spilt by them during collection either.
The can’t be arsed attitude is alive and well.
November 6, 2021
Here they mince the rubbish up with the grass!
Nice.
But then they know that idiot, council tax payers will go on rubbish cleansing exercises organised by some appalling local mafia type charity group. ( Cameronâs âBig Societyâ aka Marxism).
And then the council proceeds to p*ss tax payersâ dosh into woke projects that very few want.
Or even know about!
November 6, 2021
Now thats whats called ”Levelling Up”
November 6, 2021
+1
đ€ lol!
November 6, 2021
Councils cannot do these things because the donât have enough money to do them.
Councils donât have enough money because most of their resources go on social care for the elderly. And the party of central government, which you vote for, keeps cutting the budgets councils get from central government.
November 6, 2021
Have you checked lately how much councils spend on their staff pensions unreformed compared with the private sector and vastly superior. I guess not.
November 6, 2021
+1 high salaries and high wages for lots of people doing little of any real value to the public at all.
November 6, 2021
Town Clerks ( that is what they are) are vastly overpaid.
And money is channelled into wokery rather than the things that councils should concern themselves with.
November 6, 2021
+1 but they are very efficient at motorist mugging, so they can be efficient when it suits them and raises cash for their remuneration.
November 6, 2021
+1
Agree 100%.
November 6, 2021
yawn…
November 6, 2021
Head in the sand and arse upwards as usual, especially where the young are concerned. Does it not occur to you that councils would not have to budget for this if people behaved responsibly? Do you train your kids not to be louts? Doubtful with your attitude – someone else should pick it up and keep the place tidy seems to be your mantra, apart from wishing the elderly ill, which betrays your real nature.
November 6, 2021
Andy, say who? Which costs have you identified? housing benefits? I read that the majority of people pay for their own home care. Care home costs (I thought the Council got these back from the national government? How much of the Council budget goes on pension contributions and pension top ups for their own staff? Actually it is time we did have this conversation what are we paying for with the rates and has local government just become something it was never intended to be. Council tax takes 15-20% of most peopleâs basic pension.
None of the elderly people in my family use council services so I donât know what they are eligible for and who would pay for it. But at least theyâve been paying-in full contributions for 50-60 years without any discounts.
November 6, 2021
According to a recent Kings Fund report, 40% of councils’ budgets are spent on adult social care, as both the number of the elderly AND disabled working-age adults is growing.
November 6, 2021
SM – Iâve just checked my council and their spend on Adult social care out of their total budget as 40% seemed too steep.
Total service expenditure ÂŁ605m
Adult Social Care ÂŁ123.8m 20.43%
If social housing was spread fairly around every area this wouldnât be such a big burden in some areas. This is where effort should be concentrated to even out social housing in each postcode. For each 10,000 residents no more than 15% should be social care housing.
November 6, 2021
SM In England the total expenditure on services in 2020/21 was ÂŁ98,781,792,000
Total expenditure on Adult Social Care ÂŁ17,685,814,000
Which is 17.904%
This is from the UK HMGOV website local authority revenue expenditure and financing.
November 6, 2021
Give it rest young andy
You are obsessed.
You will be old sooner than you think
Will you then hate yourself.
November 6, 2021
And their own pensions and the diversity coordinators…
But tell me. To whom do I apply for this provision from the council for my Mum, Andy ?
So far she’s paid for everything herself from savings and investments and a private pension.
Phew !!! There I was thinking we were going to get spanked for a whole inheritance worth of carehome fees in her last year (having already cared for her for the last four years.)
November 6, 2021
Andy : âCouncils cannot do these things because they donât have enough money to do them.â
I believe the solution is to bring back conscripted national service.
This time it would apply to all young people, not just men, and not for military service but for social services to the local community from litter collection to elderly care.
By building/renovating hospitals, care homes and social housing would enable the youngsters to be taught useful skills such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work and even HGV driving.
Far better than the current immorality of importing cheap labour from undeveloped countries.
November 6, 2021
Too much goes on squandering, a good example being the Manchester Gay Pride event.
November 6, 2021
When I was young the council provided lots of bins that were regularly emptied, this now seems to be beyond them – like many other things.
November 6, 2021
If you want to see clean streets and no rubbish Christine go to Croatia. I have never been anywhere cleaner. I found myself looking for rubbish but couldn’t even see a cigarette butt. It’s true. If an area us clean people are less likely to drop litter and if the fine is big enough.
November 6, 2021
Agreed, Christine. Our council’s approach to the fly-tipping problem is to restrict access to the local tip by making you ‘book a slot’ online before you can go there. ‘Because of Covid’ – of course.
Fly-tipping has been on the increase, according to the local paper. Well, who’d have guessed?
November 6, 2021
+1
November 6, 2021
The tax on making disposals via the appropriate facilities offers a huge incentive for fly tipping. It was a Gummer invention.
November 6, 2021
In Birmingham if you don’t own a car you are not allowed to enter the tip at all.
November 6, 2021
I find it deeply ironic that it’s the Thunberg generation constantly whining about the behaviour of their elders, yet are most responsible for throwing litter around.
November 6, 2021
Youngsters are being brainwashed and don’t seem to understand they are part of the problem always wanting the latest gadgets, lifts in cars rather than walking, foreign holidays etc.. Just wait, in a few years we will have the introduction of the environmental green shirts who spy and report on their parents for transgressions. Our education system is becoming rotten and the minds of our children manipulated. Parents need to take control over their children and instill old fashioned values to stop littering and reduce their carbon footprint.
November 6, 2021
@Christine +1 Oh so true. The irony, their wholly material based World is one of the biggest contributors to ‘Climate Change’ discarded plastics and so on. They don’t even comprehend that their mobile phone is manufactured in one of the World largest polluting Countries and then shipped to their pockets by the most polluting method.
November 6, 2021
The younger generation have ALWAYS blamed the older generation, this is nothing new. But what is new is the older generation latching on to the younger generation and using them as human shields for their own politics.
And then gaslighting us telling us we are old meanies for criticising the highly influential opinions of a young girl.
November 6, 2021
Christine – The Education system has been rotten for many, many years, deliberately so, as it is all part of the WEF agenda. Old fashioned values which include discipline will not be instilled until we have a complete change in the education system. Unfortunately the mention of discipline sends shock waves throughout the lefty libtard SJW groups who are prominent in senior positions of many local authorites.
November 6, 2021
+1
November 6, 2021
You have precisely no evidence that it is young people throwing litter around – aside, of course, from your prejudice.
I see very few people litter. When I do it tends to be elderly men throwing cigarette butts out of their car windows. You can tell from their number plates they are mostly Brexitists.
A far bigger cause of litter is rubbish blown from overflowing bins and from black sacks which have been opened by foxes. Councils cannot collect these quickly enough because you voted for the people who empty bins to go home, and you didnât step up to empty bins yourself. You also vote for a party that repeatedly cuts councilsâ budgets giving them less money to spend on rubbish collection.
It is the fault of people like you.
November 6, 2021
I litter pick once a week and I haven’t found a single Werther’s Original packet. Plenty of sweetie wrappers and countless high energy drinks cans (I can’t see an oldie drinking Monster)…. and a certain burger chain’s detritus.
November 6, 2021
Not to mention those ‘hippy crack’ gas cylinders, which are allegedly unrecyclable. I suppose Andy thinks all these ‘highs’ are being had by pensioners.
November 7, 2021
Yep. A couple of soda syphon bulbs the other day too !
November 6, 2021
prejudice …..coming from YOU. f..king hilarious.
November 6, 2021
Perhaps if people like you didn’t vote against fox hunting foxes would not be a problem…
November 7, 2021
You are the silliest person on this site.
November 6, 2021
Old Albion – I saw an old lady pull a leaflet off her windscreen and just throw it to the road, I made a point of walking over, picked it up and put it in a nearby bin. I see elderly men throwing cigarette dimps in the street still glowing. I would love to set a camera up near our local take away where lots of litter is thrown from cars to see just who is responsible for throwing it out of their windows.
November 6, 2021
I don’t think that it is school and college kids, who fly-tip trade waste all over the countryside somehow, do you?
Or who discharge billions of litres of raw sewage into our rivers and coastal waters?
November 6, 2021
We know who fly tip a lot but we’re not allowed to say how they pay for their 4x4s and weddings.
November 6, 2021
I think almost all of us can answer both questions easily.
Sadly all British governments have ignored it for decades.
November 6, 2021
I have to agree with, beresford, turboterrier and corky.
Walk down any country lane and you will see the food packaging, plastic bottles and plastic bags that have been carelessly thrown out of car or van windows, perhaps by the parents of those same children that you were talking to! After all, it would not do to have that rubbish piling up in the car. Much of it will eventually make its way into the sea.
I suggest that every class spend one lesson a week or fortnight picking up that rubbish and they would then put pressure on their parents to stop throwing it out of vehicle windows.
Growing up in the 1950’s, our own parents would not allow us to leave a trail of litter when we went into the countryside. When we went camping we left no sign of our passing.
November 6, 2021
Who will pick up the corpses of the li’l chillen killed whilst picking up litter from the verges of our by-pass?
November 6, 2021
Yes BOF, it was a final action before breaking camp. We all had to form a line to scour the site for any thing left or lost, the act allowed to leave, leaving no sign we had camped there.
I believe Scouting and Guiding should be compulsory, Another invention by a Great Britđ.
November 6, 2021
Good idea MFD; perhaps they can also be educated in the reality of “Climate Change” and other government nonsense.
November 6, 2021
Poor children that they have to absorb the ideological extremism pumped into their developing intellects by a warped-minded and deeply damaged British State. Race, gender, green issues are the new weapons of Marxist ideological war.
Well done John and the Tories. Keep up the good work. Who needs left wing extremist activists when you a Tory party that’s quite literally doing the bidding of people like John McDonnell and J Corbyn
I do wonder what goes on inside the heads of Tory MPs and their advisers. Not much I suspect
November 6, 2021
+1
What goes on = âIâm right, Iâm right,Iâm right x several trillion.
Then maybe = âOh Iâm a bit fritâŠumâŠ.but IâM RIGHT x a few more trillionâ.
Thus blotting out reality.
Then they deal with the âfritâ aspect with cowardly gagging orders.
November 6, 2021
The NHS is also a weapon of this nihilistic war on our past.
1% of our population was compensated when slavery was abolished – I saw Who Do You Think You Are and one English ancestor was sent up tall mansion chimneys as a small boy, my ancestors were slaves too – working in coal pits and the bowels of steam ships.
1% is a familiar figure for some reason. That approximates with the ruling class in present day Britain.
November 6, 2021
+1
November 7, 2021
The 1% of the 1% =Ruling Class. They transcend national boundaries. It would seem that supra-national bodies are heavily influenced by the helpers in those bodies,the same group think.
It seems a lot of our so called democratic governments and leaders are easily groomed for capture.
Re: Litter
Perhaps we should have a litter tax based on the offending items, charged to the manufacturer or distributors. Award litter fining contracts to private companies in litter spots. Fine according to income, or denial of services like driving license,passport, exclusion orders from public venues. Or make them pay for an attend remedial practical classes in litter collection and public behaviour.
Perhaps as our trade focus moves to the far east, we should look to and re-learn from the disciplines instilled in those countries.
Bring in higher standards for the longevity and reliability of products, not just increasing the
November 6, 2021
Stop the lunacy of electric vehicles. These are not really green. Look at the damage from mining the minerals required for the millions of batteries, the exploitation of children in 3rd world countries used to mine these minerals and the final disposal of used batteries into landfill. Everyone who has owned a mobile phone or laptop knows the limited life of a battery. We are building an environmental disaster for the future.
November 6, 2021
+1
They are trying to export our carbon footprint.
In the process making it even greater.
And, as you say, also exporting our child slave labour.
These âdonât call us racists, weâre nice reallyâ politicians.
Utterly sickening.
To be industrialised there has to be a third armâŠCHEAP or FREE labour.
Presumably thatâs why they are making fools of themselves with robots!
November 6, 2021
More denialist unsubstantiated fake data. Have a look at some real data. https://graphics.reuters.com/ELECTRIC-VEHICLES/EMISSIONS/rlgpdrmjmpo/chart.png .
November 6, 2021
+1
November 6, 2021
I tend to agree, keeping your old car nearly always saves more CO2 than causing a new EV to be built. The one advantage EVs have is they shift pollution out of city centres. They are emissions elsewhere vehicles. Plug in Hybrids that can do say 30 miles on a small battery in town or fuel cell cars seem to make more sense. Or indeed just the rather clean petrol cars we have.
Batteries have huge problems – heavy, cannot store much energy per KG, expensive, slow to recharge, short lived high depreciation, hard to recycle, much fossil fuels needed to manufacture them, they needs charging places at homes and most/many do not have them, have limited range, damaging to the environmentâŠ
November 6, 2021
CHRISTINE – – “building an environmental disaster for the future” – – and importing a financial and cultural one for this nation. 3rd world people don’t suddenly change attitude when they get on a British beach.
November 6, 2021
It seems a rather sanguine approach to the issues along the lines of âUK good. Other countries badâ.
This country may have a number of responses to the issues – but we still have the problems. We have fly tippers and water companies (and others) that wilfully ignore laws and discharge toxic waste into rivers and seas.
The plethora of takeaway food shops where there was once only fish and chips means lots more packaging much of which is carelessly discarded.
Some councils employ and anti-smoking nazis to catch and fine easy targets, such as the elderly, who drop a match but the litter issue remains.
It is now common in some areas to see domestic appliances, mattresses and old sofas dumped on streets whereas once they would be given to a ârag and boneâ man.
November 6, 2021
Our rag & bone man back in the 50’s was a godsend for disposing of lots of things. What he then did with them may have been constructive, who knows. But these days he’d need a licence, proof of appropriate training and constant checks by a local authority jobsworth. Oh, and his bell and indecipherable cry would breach by-laws on nuisance, not to mention the hindrance to traffic caused by his slow moving cart. How things have improved…
November 6, 2021
Actually, we have such a collector, who comes round our neighbourhood about once a month, shouting some unintelligible call into a microphone and speakers on his pickup truck.
I accept that he’s perhaps something of a curiosity these days but there are still some.
November 6, 2021
That’s probably working class he’s speaking, NLH.
Send me a recording and I’ll translate it for you.
November 6, 2021
Maybe you could translate the “indecipherable cry” referred to by David L, and of which I simply indicated the continuing existence to this day, and thereby the error of the related claims in his post?
November 7, 2021
Wrong tense, NLH
Accept a good one-liner when it’s delivered and shrug it off.
November 6, 2021
He is probably shouting that he will collect Tesla’s with dodgy batteries, nearly new gas boilers and useless heat pumps?
November 6, 2021
Many, many years ago if you had a mattress, domestic apliance or a large item to dispose of, one could ring your local council and they would collect it without charge.
Hence fly tipping at this time. Councils spend money on BS lefty woke agendas and necessties go to pot. Plus attitudes have changed and no one gives a toss.
November 6, 2021
Fly tipping is 100% the fault of the tippers irrespective.
If you want a service, then be willing to pay for it – on your retrogressive Tory CT.
November 6, 2021
I very much doubt there was much plastic in the seas when manufacturers didnât swathe their products in the stuff.
THRY DIDNâT you know.
Remember when people unwrapped their goods at the checkout?
Remember when food was wrapped in small sheets of white paper?
Control the corporations!
No problem controlling us and denying us plastic carriers!!
November 6, 2021
Young people care about the environment.
They, misguidedly, look to adults to fix the problems that they have made.
Obviously this government cannot fix any problems as it is too busy taking backhanders – and in trying to save the careers of its supporters who do.
I also want to know what I have to do to get a free holiday from serial election loser Zac Goldsmith. I canât give him a peerage but maybe I can buy him some Smarties or something. What do you say Zac?
November 6, 2021
We all care about the environment in similar proportions.
November 6, 2021
Why did George Ezra decide to throw a coffee cup over his shoulder in a video ?
Because – for young people – it would have been uncool to put it in a bin.
Glastonbury festival is a shit hole, just as my boy’s shared student digs were. Yet the Countryside Alliance march I joined was spotless and I was berated for not doffing my cap on passing the Cenotaph.
November 6, 2021
Andy you are correct, why would the young expect adults to fix the problems the young create?
November 6, 2021
I canât agree more with pretty much everyone this morning, except Andy and his daily dig at the elderly.
Is it that kids are tidied up after too much at home, so they donât even think to take their rubbish home, or to a nearby bin? Who knows? And then they become adultsâŠ
And I agree, any busy venue, the bins are emptied far too infrequently, and then the wind has fun blowing the surplus everywhere.
I remember seven or eight years ago, driving through a beautiful remote part of YorkshireâŠcoming across a little stream, miles from anywhere – with three beer cans sitting on a rock!
Thinking of Glastonbury, why on Earth would you go away for a few days, in a tent – and then leave it behind?
Keep Britain Tidy!
November 6, 2021
So a nothing to do with us answer. As we get battered on recycling vast amounts, in fact donât get recycled and our government is weak on the use of plastic containers/packaging.
We waste a fortune, soon to be increased thanks to the virtue signallers, given to unaccountable NGOs whilst there is a âplastic lakeâ twice the size of France in the middle of an ocean being left to âcharitiesâ to sort out.
If you were serious you would form a consortium to seriously sort this out.
As for more woodland, letâs forget the biomass powering our electricity that creates more CO2 than the coal it replaces. I can only assume Ministers are too thick to see the nonsense that this is, not forgetting COP trumpeted reducing tree felling, looking at the corruption in the main offending countries, that in itself is bollocks, whilst needed trees to light and heat this country.
November 6, 2021
Visit a victorian ( and older) rubbish dump.
All you will find are shards of pottery and glass and hopefully a couple of whole pottery jars with lids!
Maybe a few bits of metal.
All gradually becoming one with the soil.
So who changed that?
And why were they allowed to?
Who said as usual, rubbing their hands, âOh, itâll be ok.â?
November 6, 2021
Pottery and glass becoming one with the soil? Really?
November 6, 2021
Well done Sir John for accepting the challenge and talking to schoolchildren about the plastic waste issue
Much of the plastic waste arisings in the UK are separated from household waste, either by householders or at integrated recycling plants. The plastic is then burnt in “Waste to Energy” plants, producing electricity – or the low level heat generated is used in modern district heating developments. We have a large number of E2W plants across the country.
There is a limited amount of ancient broadleaf woodland left in the UK and most of what is still extant is highly fragmented. If developers trash some of it and try to replace it with trees planted elsewhere, this rarely works, species diversity is lost. And domestic tree producers have insufficient capacity to provide enough saplings to meet Govey’s tree planting promises. We will have to import them from the EU.
November 6, 2021
SG
I looked up a website called forestresearch.gov.uk and table 1.2 shows there has been a growth in the area of UK woodland.
eg
1947 1,211,000 ha
2018 3,173,000 ha
November 7, 2021
But not ancient woodland which is being destroyed.
November 7, 2021
Perhaps mature woodland is being harvested to create good timber to make things and be used in the construction of much needed new housing.
I have showed that at least it is being more than replaced by new woodland.
Not what I would call destroyed.
November 6, 2021
is yet another thing we are made to feel guilty about — Yet another stick with which to beat us, with the people of the UK seemingly responsible for all of it.
It’s perfectly clear that the habits of too many people in this country leave a lot to be desired – some can’t even be bothered to throw their plastic wrappers away tidily even when a rubbish bin is within reach – Instead preferring my garden to dump their casual rubbish into.
The facts are that the vast majority of plastic that gets into the oceans comes from Asia. I’m not saying ‘WE’ should ignore the problem, but it would be more helpful to identify the worst polluters and target their abuses.
Plastic has become a key word for the MMCC religion. Linking pollution with climate change is typical of how they expand their reach. Most sensible people would agree that we could be a lot better at keeping our environment clean, BUT THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ALLEGED MMCC.
Adding pollution to alleged weather issues just shows how they continually throw curved balls at us to make us effect of their otherwise dumb policies.
November 6, 2021
Dear Sir John,
An increasing part of the plastics problem is disposable facemasks. They are plastic products, that can’t easily be biodegraded and often fragment into smaller plastic particles that spread widely in ecosystems. The BBC estimates 19 billion single-use face masks have been used in Britain. Many of them go into landfill sites or into watercourses, and then into the sea. Yet governments don’t seem to want to regulate the disposal of these things. I wonder why that is. Perhaps you could set an example by continuing not to wear one in the House of Commons.
November 6, 2021
I was involved in street cleansing for a while and visited some of the affected sites. Most were down to schools children on their breaks. Shopping centres I visited were spotless at 11.45 on school days and at 1.45 they were deep in litter. Slip roads to motorways seem to attract a lot of car clear outs before their long and arduous journeys to the next feeding station.
Sadly there are also some who litter as an act of defiance to the law enforcers.
November 7, 2021
Robert. I remember we weren’t allowed out of school during our lunchbreak. You either had school dinners or sandwiches. Now as you say, you see the kids going into the nearest takeaways for their very unhealthy food and discarding their rubbish in the streets.
November 6, 2021
Just shows the level of indoctrination. I am surprised you were not asked how you wished to be addressed. Mr, Mrs, Ms or even Zee. Perhaps you were. ! I am surprised you were not cancelled., being a Tory. Schools these days link the Tories to a right wing party of the 1930âs in Germany.
I was invigilating at a Wokingham school once and saw a poster on the wall painted by a student. In bold it said, âThe Rise of UKIPâ. All over it were swastikas. You have to ask what that child was being brainwashed with.
November 6, 2021
Over many years, into decades of travel, to other continents, I would say England has always been amongst the very worst country for street rubbish. After bins were removed in the time of the ‘troubles’ it only got worse.
Yes, drink containers, fast-food and sandwich wrappers being the main offenders. Sadly living near both a primary and secondary school, it is clear the pedestrians drop litter, and a pile of ‘dog-ends’ demonstrate where drivers empty car ashtrays.
Visit any railway station and you are likely to see litter in the immediate area – dropped before or after using the station?
November 6, 2021
An effort has started to clean up the plastic waste floating in the middle of the Pacific. Much of this was a consequence of the tsunami which struck the coast of Japan a few years ago. The method is to use two ships to tow a net to capture floating waste. This is brought aboard, like a fish catch, where it is sorted for recycling. A grandson of mine has an idea to capture microplastics in water for which he has built an initial prototype. He is aiming to develop the idea during his Imperial College/RCA postgraduate course. It is an interesting idea, good enough to win some prize money to help fund his efforts.
November 6, 2021
Isn’t the UK’s contribution to “plastic in the oceans” more likely a result of huge amounts of plastic waste being transported overseas rather than being properly dealt with here? Are those concerned also exercised about all those disposable ineffective facemasks people were encouraged or forced to wear by this government adding to the plastic waste mountain?
November 6, 2021
We only control the UK, so how about a serious drive to make all plastic that the general public come into contact with bio degradable. Those plastics used in other spheres are much easier to control, NHS waste for instance.
Plastic waste that is already in the sea can collect in certain areas, the Sargasso Sea for instance. Why not create factory ships that can hoover this waste up and process it at sea, turning it into something useful or into waste more readily disposable.
One serious polluter of the sea is snagged fishing equipment. What is to stop us reverting to natural fibre in its manufacture. If it is less effective as a fishing tool this might give the fish a better chance of reaching maturity. This could be used as a back door way to limiting voracious French fishing in our waters.
November 6, 2021
Back in my day if a pupil had broken a school rule they could be punished by being given litter duty. They then had to spend their play time walking round the play ground and sports field collecting litter which was duly presented to a teacher. Can you imagine the uproar if this was still done today – human rights, PPE etc – but it worked as no one wanted the ignominy of such a duty.
At COP 26 why on earth has so little been made of the real problem – the exponential growth of world population – and it feels like most of that is headed to the UK. We’ve done our bit by going from 4 grandparents to one grandson!
November 6, 2021
It was quite wrong of your school to have this punishment – because it created the idea that picking up litter was indeed a punishment and something to be avoided. What a stupid school! Picking up litter should have been made a daily task for ALL pupils to engage in, and those who picked the most should have received some form of award.
In Japan, all students clean their classrooms at the end of the day. Yes, it is the children who sweep and scrub the floors. It is taught to them that this is their CIVIC DUTY. That is why you see ZERO litter on the streets in Japan, and you see Japanese football supporters clearing up their stadiums before they leave at the end of a match. If you don’t believe me just do an internet search.
Sir John, why don’t you recommend to schools in your constituency that they adopt this policy?
November 6, 2021
The motive of my school was to encourage pupils that litter should not be dropped in the first place and thus avoid the punishment. Back in the 1960’s it worked. From your perpective it may seem “stupid” but they were making an effort. I still clearly remember the headmaster tipping a dustbin full of litter on the stage in front of the whole school to demonstrate the problem – which really shocked me. Try to view my comment from that point in our past.
November 6, 2021
True. And having studied Shotokan Karate beyond black belt (and been an instructor) I can assure you that dojo cleanliness is ingrained and paramount… after swabbing up the blood.
(I know what you’re all thinking but it’s true. I never lie on this site.)
November 6, 2021
We already know where most of the plastic in our oceans comes from and it’s not the UK ….
“about 90 percent of all the plastic that reaches the world’s oceans gets flushed through just 10 rivers: The Yangtze, the Indus, Yellow River, Hai River, the Nile, the Ganges, Pearl River, Amur River, the Niger, and the Mekong (in that order).”
It is Asia and Africa causing the problem, not western countries. But from the way we are lectured by the “Green Elite”, you’d think it was the opposite. A little more honesty about the generators of the plastic pollution in our seas would help but I fail to see why British taxpayers should be required to pay for China and India’s refuse collection!
As for trees, Johnson is directly responsible for the destruction of 108 ancient woodlands with his Vanity Train Line known as HS2 (no business case whatsoever). So anything he and his Government have to say about the need for more trees is another example of rank hypocrisy, and that’s before we get onto the lunacy of the Drax Power Station being fuelled by tree pellets from America.
I do hope Sir John took the opportunity to explain a few of these home truths to the kiddies, who are now to be brainwashed about “climate change” in schools from the age of 5.
November 6, 2021
Well said.
November 6, 2021
The local McDonalds in Chippenham is next to Sainsburyâs, on a recent visit while I was parking I saw the occupant of a car throw the packaging out of the window, I walk over and tapped on the window and said âI think that you dropped this, not me mateâŠ. But I saw youâŠ.. â
There was a litter bin immediately next to the car
I only spent one night in A&E and the scars should fade soon⊠seriously though he was very contrite and apologised!
November 6, 2021
If packaging was a coherent sector it would be one of the biggest in the world.
Not only could we convert most packaging to re-usable, we could do this on a global footing.
Low admin Smart Reusable Packaging would facilitate low cost automation and vastly reduce labour costs allowing us to make finished goods in our own country and therefore dramatically improve the economy.
While it needs some modest seed funding, the economic case is overwhelming and it will be extremely good for the environment. It will mean that domestic refuse collections will convert from collecting landfill to collecting packaging to be washed and reprocessed.
November 6, 2021
When the bottle deposit was proposed I suggested to DEFRA that they include aluminium drinks cans, the most recyclable of all the rubbish dumped in our hedgerows and the most indestructible. They were ‘consulting stakeholders’. Good luck with that. During the heavy rains this summer our street was flooded with a stream running in the road for about a week. Eventually Suffolk Highways found that a vital gulley at the top end was blocked with aluminium cans.
Walk along any minor road in East Anglia and you will find dumped cans. If they were worth ten pence they would yield about two pounds a mile, sometimes much more. A simple change but presumably the big supermarkets vetoed it.
When I see volunteers doing their rubbish pick I embarrass Mrs Flood by stopping and applauding. They are doing good work but really it shouldn’t be up to them.
JF
November 6, 2021
Aluminum scrap is worth perhaps ÂŁ1 per kg, so I suspect each can is worth rather less that 10p delivered to a scrapyard.
November 7, 2021
well years ago I used to visit Sweden often. I was puzzled to see ‘down and outs’ collecting cans, inspecting bins for them etc. Asking a colleague about it I was told they got a worthwhile sum, and did a useful civic duty.
November 7, 2021
Julian. My husband and myself get applause from people when we litter pick. Instead of standing there applauding, why not get out and litter pick yourself?
November 7, 2021
And what did I write that suggested I don’t? Thank you for your suggestion though.
JF
PS. I don’t stand up in the car, I wind down the window.
November 6, 2021
While I’m here… Look up the paper and online comments about a paper by Rif and Evans who are using the CYGNSS system to zero in on areas where microplastics concentrate in the oceans. This means that they can identify the main sources of ocean plastic dumping.
So, Sir John, what are you going to say to China?
JF
November 6, 2021
Todays good read – beautifully sums up the Boris/Biden flawed new Socialisms
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/11/05/america-will-need-margaret-thatchers-conviction-clean-mess-left/
November 6, 2021
@Nota#
Finally, capitalism means defending the principles at our countryâs core. America is not rotten. America is not racist. Freedom and the rule of law are not tools of oppression. They are essential to providing opportunity for all. Of course America isnât perfect. But the principles at the heart of America are perfect. Margaret Thatcher was right. Thereâs no need for a U-Turn away from capitalism. It is the road that brought our people and country further than any other in human history.
Nikki Haley
Former US Ambassador to the UN
November 6, 2021
This government likes the word âzeroâ so hereâs another zero
The UK contributes zero plastic pollutant into the oceans of the world
The UN report 6 major rivers (2 in Africa and 4 in Asia) that contribute all pollutants in oceans
November 6, 2021
Plastic it self is not a problem, its a material that solves problems of providing a cheap and effective solution to most of the Worlds needs. It is humans that are the problem, they abuse it, discard it with out a care. We need to use it but proper responsibility is required for its clean up.
It is said that the only way UK Supermarket carrier bags arrived in the Pacific Ocean was because lazy UK Councils sent it there on the ‘cheap’ (and the containers just happened to fall off the ship).
There is irony, all the eco terrorist we see are out there wearing predominantly plastic clothing, plastic trainers and scheming to pull society down on their plastic phones manufactured in Countries with the highest level of ‘Global Warming’ pollution.
This PM will not in anyway do anything, simply because it plays into his controlling over zealous over taxing religion. The more the terrorist shout the more they help with the Boris brainwashing.
November 6, 2021
Good morning.
I live at the bottom of a slight incline and, when the wind picks up, litter is blown onto my front drive. I get all kinds of rubbish that I have to pick up but, there was one piece of rubbish that I kept – A ÂŁ10 note đ
Despite all the recycling and other Green initiatives we still have plenty of litter. Perhaps it is time for a litter tax on those who have takeaways ? Only joking đ
Or better still, have in place what we had when I was a lad, two pence return on every bottle of pop (Corona was best). We as kids would scour our local area hunting for bottles and return them to the local newsagents and claim our reward. We would then spend it on sweets. Ah happy days đ Maybe something similar could be done or, we could ask those illegal immigrants to earn the ÂŁ35 / week spending money and clear up the litter for us ? I am sure they would be only too happy to help their new found hosts đ
November 6, 2021
And the loud mouth Swedish girl says “finding a solution to climate change is nothing to do with her”… Wonderfull
November 6, 2021
The latest Government wheeze, is to have the Education system teach as part of the curriculum the dangers of ‘Global Warming’. You have to ask ‘Who’s version’ and is it in context.
Education is not about brain washing it is learning how to discover.
November 6, 2021
The bigger problem now is the amount of not so easy to see micro particles of plastic swirling around our oceans and getting into the food chain. It goes like this- common domestic washing machines are pumping out thousands of tonnes daily of small plastic particles from their wash leftovers – this generally gathers in the estuaries of rivers near big cities and is in turn scooped up by merchant ships who need ballast water before proceeding on their way. Then by the law of the sea IMO and US Coast Guard all to do with prevention of pollution by dumping ballast water from one region into another – here they were thinking about vacterial microorganisms and such – merchant ships are obliged to exchange full ballast water in mid ocean now while on passage – all has to be logged carefully. This in turn results in the tiny particles of plastic gathering in abundance in mid ocean areas and with certain fish ie. night feeders who come up to feed – is consumed and so it starts into the food chain. It seems that when they were making these laws the great IMO or American Coastguard had not got the imagination to conceive that imposing one law to prevent pollution it would have such drastic consequences in another area
November 6, 2021
Bacterial
November 6, 2021
Litter is extremely unsightly and littering is definitely anti-social, but it has nothing to do with plastic in the sea. Litter doesn’t magically fly from a street in Wokingham to the sea. Some sea plastic is due to litter dropped on our beaches, and more effort should be made to keep these clean, but the overwhelming majority of plastic sea pollution has NOTHING to do with the UK. It was shown a few years ago that over 90% of the plastic in the oceans came from just TEN rivers:
The Nile
The Niger
The Indus
The Ganges
The Amur
The Mekong
The Pearl River
The Hai he
The Yellow River
The Yangtze – the very worst offender, dumping 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year.
So Africa and (mainly) Asia are the culprits, not the West. But this won’t stop the self-hating, masochistic, anti-British racists from blaming the British government and demanding we do more to solve the problem, just as with climate change, world poverty, disease, etc. These people just don’t understand or accept that the world’s problems are NOT our fault or our responsibility!
November 6, 2021
and yet in every school, college or university – students are being taught that its our fault
November 6, 2021
and the Media and the Government policies.
November 7, 2021
@X-Tory – the UK has obviously re-sited them as it is the UK is the main culprit
November 6, 2021
Off topic, according to John Major attempts to free Northern Ireland from continuing EU control and restore the Act of Union and keep the UK together would be “colossally stupid” and “silly politics to placate a few extreme Brexiteers”:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/john-major-brexit-european-union-brexiteers-boris-johnson-b964744.html
It’s largely thanks to people like him who care far more for the European Union than for the British Union that we got lumbered with this rotten Irish protocol, which cannot be allowed to stand.
November 6, 2021
And now we have the EU allegedly threatening to possibly halt all trade with the UK if Article 16 is invoked:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/eu-fires-warning-shot-over-northern-ireland-protocol-kvhw6fnj9
“The response from the EU would involve tariffs on high-value British exports, new border checks and an end to data transfers, hitting shopping, banking and many other businesses. If the government used Article 16 to go beyond customs checks to remove all European court jurisdiction, the EU would suspend all trade, leading to blanket tariffs and border chaos.”
If the EU decided to suspend all trade with the UK then it would be interesting to see how its lawyers would manage to reconcile the imposition of a total trade embargo on the UK with the international commitments that the EU collectively, and all of its member states individually, have made through the WTO treaties. not to mention various provisions of their own EU treaties.
As for suspension of the present trade deal, the EU must know that it is not worth much to the UK:
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/is-the-uk-eu-trade-deal-worth-keeping/
“If UK exports were to face these tariffs, the economic losses would be modest. Based on a price elasticity of around 1.5, UK exports to the EU might fall by around ÂŁ7 billion per year, which is equivalent to just 0.3% of UK GDP.”
November 6, 2021
The piece is about plastic waste, Denis.
November 6, 2021
NLH
Great that youâve taken over the task of monitoring the content of Sir Johnâs diary!
Good work
November 6, 2021
You and I have been off topic too. Look at the comments by X-Tory and Julian Flood above.
The UK is being beaten up for other’s misdeeds here – though that is what outsourcing does, it displaces our dirty work to elsewhere.
November 6, 2021
No Denis, the EU could NOT engage in a trade embargo. The most they could do (and I would give this no more than a 35% probability rating) is suspend the TCA and say that all trade will be by WTO MFN rules. Frankly, I would welcome this as it would benefit the UK (which is why I strongly suspect it won’t happen)! Remember that many of us – including our kind host- actually wanted this from the start! It would mean no more multi-billion pound annual payments to the EU, and no need to give EU fishermen access to British waters. This latter point alone will almost guarantee that the EU don’t go for this option!
WTO tariffs are minimal and LESS than the fall in the pound, so UK exporters will be just as competitive as before in EU markets, while EU exporters to the UK will be the most negatively impacted. Indeed, many UK exporters are currently ignoring the option of trading under the TCA rules because the documentation required by the EU is (deliberately) too onerous, and PREFER to pay the WTO tariffs and trade as a third nation!!
November 6, 2021
The pound has fallen 4 cents in the week. Expect higher petrol prices and more costly imported goods. With so much industry being shut down by expensive energy and green policies we risk a sharp deterioration in the balance of payments. Perhaps that is what is behind the fall.
November 7, 2021
@Mark – just remember all the extra VAT this tax and spend Government is now reaping in
November 7, 2021
Yes, four years ago when the Irish government announced what I called its “absurd extreme and intransigent” position over the land border, and the Irish EU Commissioner Phil Hogan said that Ireland “would play tough to the end” over that issue:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ireland-border-brexit-latest-theresa-may-customs-union-phil-hogan-northern-a8076271.html
Theresa May should have responded that she would no longer seek any preferential trade treaty with the EU but instead would simply default to the existing WTO treaties.
All the way through this the UK negotiating position has been undermined by the myth that a special trade relationship with our neighbours is crucial for our prosperity.
Now I think it is our turn to “play tough to the end”, but will that happen?
November 6, 2021
Denis – if article 16 is triggered then we are into a different ballgame resulting in annexe 7.. i think.. which will, i believe, be a long and torturous path.. we’ll be into the dark ages of a trade war possibly lasting for a generation or more but all according to WTO trade rules – which I might add does not take account services.
Then as someone else pointed out yesterday it might well end up that access to the port of Calais and othef ports nearby will be denied to us because of lack of French customs officials and might last for some considerable time.. but we’ll reason it out that it will be allright because we’ve got sovereignty on our side. I expect All exports imports will be switched to Felixstowe then via Antwerp Rotterdam etc.
So careful.. it’s not the tariffs that will upend us but congestion in the ports
November 7, 2021
As reported by the Times, maybe inaccurately, the EU would apply a full trade embargo to the whole UK, 100% of the UK economy, in the event that the UK denied the continuing jurisdiction of the EU’s court in one small par1 of the national territory, Northern Ireland, representing less than 3% to the overall UK economy. That might seem a rather disproportionate response to impartial observers even if there was some real life case before the ECJ which would have real life practical implications, such as significant quantities of certain goods which in the considered view of that EU court did not comply with EU requirements nonetheless being allowed to circulate in Northern Ireland, and some perceptible fraction of those contraband goods finding their way over the land border into the Irish Republic. But as I understand at present there is no such real life practical case upon which the court has pronounced, it is all hypothetical; even the British sausages to which the EU now suddenly objects in principle, despite no changes to the relevant UK standards, as yet, will actually be just as safe for human consumption in either Belfast or Dublin or indeed on the continent as they were before we left the EU, and in any case as far as I know we have yet to hear from the Irish government how many of these non-compliant but still safe British sausages have been finding their way across the land border, intruding into the EU Single Market, during the extended grace period unilaterally declared by the UK government.
The EU claims it is offering “practical solutions to the implementation of the Protocol”:
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/1105/1258219-article-16-latest-analysis/
but they were never interested in practical solutions for the land border, with even the practical solution proposed by a former EU Commission senior official rejected out of hand:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49488844
“Brexit: Backstop plan by Sir Jonathan Faull dismissed by EU”
November 6, 2021
Highlighting the Governments hypocrisy in moving so-called causes of ‘Global Warming’ from UK territory. It has just been announced that the next generation of the Electric Mini will not be built in the UK as now, but in China. So a so-called ‘green’ electric car will create more pollution than ever because we have a Government that discourages the UK from having an economy. Just think the new Mini will be contributing to the Chinese economy and coffers, while UK worker get dismissed, the economy looses out and the Chancellor looses out – and the World gains more pollution and greater Global Warming.
And – it is all Government policy. Government thinks it can have tax income for their lavish spending without actually having an economy.
November 7, 2021
Not a. I understood that those Minis built in China are for their own domestic market only. Oxford will still remain the home of the Mini and a new SUV crossover Mini is to be built there too.
November 7, 2021
Fedupsoutherner – The announcement last week was for ‘all’ electric Mini’s to come from China from 2023. Its some sort of new way to keep down pollution.
November 6, 2021
It is such a shame that old fashioned repair shops arenât around anymore, getting hoovers fixed or power washers and mowers are difficult to find and often nearly as expensive as a new replacement now.
My school used to take in items like this and the lads would repair them in the workshop. They used to have a garage to tinker around on cars too.
November 6, 2021
May I mention Uskmouth power station here (wait, its very relevant!)
Background: the owners developed tech to convert plastic waste (inc unrecyclable stuff like car dashboards) into fuel pellets that could be burned instead of coal. Innovation! Whilst not 100% green, its the kind of stop-gap tech that would help as we slowly transistion to renewables (if ever, but that’s another story). Its also a tech that can be sold around the world to countries that are building new coal plants and also have rivers full of plastic waste floating in them.
However, the Welsh goverment seem hell-bent on wrapping up the project in red tape to the point the company goes bust.
Imagine if plastci waste was suddenly slightly valuable as an energy source, imagine if we could export this, imagine if we stopped coal plants being built, imagine if your enegy bill went down. Lol. imagine.
November 6, 2021
I’m listening, Andy.
November 6, 2021
Plastic is nowhere near as damaging to the planet as population growth. I am sure Andy would agree we are not dying fast enough. Why is it a subject that is not being dealt with.
With regards to your 250000 growth on your previous blog and the requirement for housing can you imagine that we have 22,000 economic illegal arrivals this year alone. (No they are not refugees) Has anyone calculated what that figure will expand to when the salivating layers assist them, at our expense to claim their extended families. Or should we just stick our heads in the sand and play pretend it won’t happen.
November 6, 2021
For a long time, England has been the filthiest country in Europe as regards litter and water pollution. I once, naively, harboured thoughts that EU membership might somehow bring about an improvement, but of course this didn’t happen. Too much BBC/MSM news about everything American and little about the EU.
Too many take-away shops selling their products in plastic containers.
One upon a time, English fish and chip shops sold their food in paper bags/newspaper wrappings, but nowadays, even these fish and chips in plastic trays.
Is it true that Scotland has banned rubbish disposal in landfill sites, and that instead they will send the rubbish to England for burial in landfill ?
November 6, 2021
The switch to continental style bar culture didn’t work either, did it.
We have more in common with hard drinking Russians.
November 7, 2021
MWB I think you’ll find that Spain can compete with not just England but the UK on the litter front. It’s my experience from living there that they have a major litter problem too and dog fouled pavements too.
November 7, 2021
Fifteen or twenty years ago we found La Alpujarra had a major litter/dumping problem, but not now. It’s cleaner than the UK by far.
JF
Hardly any potholes either, and this is a poor very mountainous (OK, big foothills, we like to think they’re mountains when we walk up them) region.
November 6, 2021
Well done for pointing out a simple truth to the children, governments donât litter, people do. Did they take this on board?
November 6, 2021
It is not the polluters Sir John, but the manufacturers of the pollutants that need to change their ways. In the 50s I remember paper, waxed paper and acetate sheets being used to wrap foods, all of which is biodegradable. Glass was used for liquids, which was recycled. Tin foil and paper, rather than plastic, wrapped chocolates.
Changing the way food and household products are packaged requires legislation. I seem to recall the much of the non-biodegradable packaging was introduced when we joined Europe in order to give products a longer shelf life and to make them lighter to reduce transport costs. Now we’ve left the EC, surely it’s time to revisit how products are packaged.
Reducing plastics for food presentation has benefits for human health and reproduction as well as the global environment.
November 6, 2021
The planting of trees needs to be better regulated. There are generous planting grants available from the public purse to encourage landowners to plant more trees absorbing the excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Grants are varied to encourage the planting of deciduous species on suitable land. Harvesting trees for their timber products can lock up the carbon they contain for many years. Conversely burning the timber requires the carbon released is recaptured (albeit in slow time) and is only “neutral green” if the woods are immediately replanted.
A recent development is the appearance of another income stream namely the purchase of Carbon Credits by polluting agencies to offset their continued carbon emissions. This has greatly increased the value of planting land. However trees can only absorb carbon once. So the publicly-funded planting grants should not be available to Carbon Credit funded forests.
November 6, 2021
Totally agree, we need more Redwood forests.
So why is Boris so contemptuous of recycling?
Plastic in oceans: Patrick More (the environmentalist) claims that there is no huge garbage patch in the pacific and he brings several arguments, one of which is a satellite picture of the cloudless pacific with no garbage patch, also a trawler which spent months looking for it and returning with 100 tons of discarded fishing gear.
In fact there is blame to share, we sent ship loads of plastic for recycling to third world countries and they promptly dump most of it into rivers.
Plastic is just another frontier in the green zealots fight against advances Western societies, we definitely need to do more to control disposal, but what they are aiming at is total abandonment i.e. plastic is the enemy.
November 6, 2021
Sewage in the rivers, plastic in the seas
Then government diverts us with a little bit of sleaze
Wastes millions of our money on climate and disease
On jollies and wallpaper, on railways and trees.
And when we come to reckon up weâll make a âlittle listâ
And hereâs the one to top the bill that really makes me p*ssed
As well as useless testing and jabs that donât persist
£36m on COP videos⊠while we must just subsist!
November 6, 2021
An increasing problem is âCovid wasteâ in the oceans – masks, single-use gloves and hand sanitiser bottles are now turning up in the Med in increasing numbers. This is something politicians are keen to add to: France alone ordered two *billion* disposable masks last year. Masks which, as studies show, are incapable of stopping a virus, but must apparently be used and chucked away anyhow.
November 6, 2021
Well said Barbara
November 6, 2021
Back on the carbon side of environmentalism, it surprised me that no mention was made by Charlie-boy or the Queen of the âQueenâs Commonwealth Canopyâ. Youâd have thought that 54 countries co-operating and acting in concert to plant and protect their forests and woodlands would have a bit of appeal to Greta and her chums?
November 6, 2021
John – what does the govt expect to happen here, with a non-stop flood of non-English speaking/ unskilled/ uneducated/ Africans and Asians arriving here for a non -working, but expecting AND GETTING , a totally FREE life. from the reducing total %age of the ( working and contributing ) population of this island?
November 6, 2021
Bigneil. They should do community work to the value of their keep and pocket money. ÂŁ35 is four hours national living wage work. If their hotel or accommodation costs ÂŁ350 per week that is 39 hours minimum wage work.
November 6, 2021
Boring, repetitive and lacking proportion but…. signalling the true direction of our present Government ! Against the will of the 80 seat majority they were gifted.
November 6, 2021
off topic
jOHN – – – How is ONE continent ( EUROPE ) expected to welcome/ absorb/ cope with the unskilled, uneducated, millions of the populations of TWO others? Africa and Asia?
November 6, 2021
+1
Our leaders are doing to us exactly what western leaders did to the indigenous Americans.
We are now expected to just move over and be replaced or âreplenishedâ.
Biden is on video saying what a good thing it is.
November 6, 2021
Litter is another dividend from increasing population and multiculturalism where nobody believes any longer that they are part of a homogeneous nation.
November 6, 2021
Plastic is a fantastic product that chemists have developed over the last 100 years to be cheap, light, strong, water proof and food safe and durable.
It is now necessary to fund chemical research to develop plastics that can retain these properties as and where required but can be biodegradable.
Some biodegradable plastics do exist for certain functions and here the Government should legislate that for these functions non-biodegradable plastic is no longer allowed.
November 6, 2021
Plastic seems to get a bad rap. There is a lot of use of plastic that saves a lot of other waste, or is otherwise more environmentally friendly than alternatives. There really needs to be proper advice to distinguish beneficial usage. You won’t get that from a bunch of green activists.
November 6, 2021
Activists, including in particular those who are of the political hard Left misuse many innocents into attacking manufacturers for litter. Litter is produced by the lazy and people who couldn’t care less.
Our cowardly leadership here dare not oppose green fanatics because they have joined them and business cannot defend themselves in the climate.
My own interest beyond the wish for sense to return is in what I would call big litter. This includes the derelict buildings, bridges and all such constructions which have either had a serious misfortune or have been abandoned and simply left to rot and spoil the areas they are in.
In addition to these are wrecked boats and ships which have been left on the coastline all around. Why are these not removed? They are of no future use and are environmental and visual polluters.
November 6, 2021
John,
We hear about people being given community service, the most recent Claudia got 200 hours how many hours per week is this? How do community service workers serve those hours, eg. does she have to provide 200 hours free public legal services relevant to her qualifications?
How do we find out how many hours our local councils have at their disposal for community service workers each week? Shouldnât this be on the local council website, with what work was done last week, how many hours were served in each community? Are the hours served in the community of the offender, i.e. the people that have to put up with them.
Who decides what work they do? Who gives them the work and supervises the teams? Do they double up with council workers?
November 6, 2021
Ps. the reason I ask is that Cities like Glasgow have real litter problems, have done for years, how many hours community service hours have Glasgow residents been served this last month alone? What duties were they given? How many people how many working hours?
In my town the leaves need sweeping up, they are starting to block drains, the paths are covered with them making them slippy and causing people with sticks and disabled residents to walk or wheel themselves in the road. Near the local church you put your foot on a pile of leaves and sink into a deep pocket of mush.
November 6, 2021
How often are we told by the broadcast media every time there are flooded roads? How often are these floods seriously worsened by failure of authorities to provide proper drainage and to keep drains clear? How often are these causes mentioned? I’ll make my point of answering the last two questions – never.
November 7, 2021
Prangwizard – I saw another repercussion of unswept streets and ignoring people parking on pavements today. The road is wide enough for people to park fully in the road. I really donât understand why they have to park on half the pavement. A local blind man who bravely walks to Tesco every day alone along the Main Street with a white stick has a much narrower pavement to navigate because of the fallen leaves piled up and the cars parked on the pavement, when he steps off the pavement onto the road his feet sink into deep mushy piles of leaves it must be very discombobulating, today he had an added obstacle, some idiot doing up an old shop put a board over the pavement on top of a pallet right over the entire pavement, this person wasnât anywhere to be seen or Iâd have confronted them about it. Weâd had to walk in a busy road to avoid it and as I turned back I noticed the blind man walking along the same pavement, my husband immediately ran back and shouted at him to stop a moment and offered his arm to walk around the ramp and the parked car into the busy road so that he could carry on his independent way to the shop. Any one living in our town would spot this man walking along the pavement a couple of times each day heâs been doing it for around twenty years. The irresponsible people around and the lack of care with leaves doesnât just affect drains but you are quite correct that it does cause those problems too!
November 6, 2021
Plastic rubbish may be horrible on our streets but it doesn’t generally end up in the ocean, either as microplastic or as larger pieces that choke turtles etc. For culprits, the fishing industry worldwide loses a lot of plastic in the sea, and in the third world a lot of the stuff gets chucked into rivers or into the sea direct.
There are plenty of good reasons to keep Britain tidy, but avoiding marine pollution (especially in the Pacific, which is what is often highlighted by environmentalists) isn’t really one of them.
November 6, 2021
Oh dear John,
What are you doing ?
“Tax payers money ” myth used twice just on the topic of litter.
You should ask the tax payer where they got their ÂŁ’s from in the first place that they then use to Pay their taxes.
It’s written on the front of every bank note beside that signature.
November 7, 2021
You confuse money printing with the circulation of the money supply.
Just because the central bank originally once created money doesn’t mean I don’t pay taxes.
I work, giving up leisure hours to complete a task and as a result I get paid.
I pay part of that gross amount in taxes.
November 6, 2021
I can count to ten in Japanese whilst performing line drills and kumite… the Brexit racist that I am !!!
Ichi
ni
san
shi
go…
November 7, 2021
Here in West Dorset our general rubbish is placed in a black wheelie bin which is collected fortnightly. Recycling is collected from a green wheelie bin collected fortnightly – on alternate weeks with the general waste. Food waste is collected weekly from a small plastic bin with a secure lid. We have loads of seagulls but no problems.
About once a month signs appear in the town inviting people to join a litter pick. I donât bother as I very rarely see any litter. If I do see litter when out on my twice daily dog walks, I pick it up and put it in a bin.
Our town is virtually litter and rubbish free and a very pleasant place to live. I suppose one must giv e the council some credit.
Why donât the police follow cars, at night, from outside burger joints, catch people lobbing litter out the window and fine them ÂŁ1000. Then make sure it is widely publicised on the local social media sites. The word would soon go round – âdo that and weâll be fined a grandâ.
November 7, 2021
‘Why donât the police follow cars, at night’
– Poor police too busy chasing drug dealers and serious crime like that. Part of how Western Civilisation, including here in UK, collapsing all around us (60 years ago, the police could have followed cars at night for rubbish – not any more).
(I’m amazed at how calm and polite etc police are in general considering everything they have to put up with)
November 7, 2021
Typical basket in Tesco’s: lots of plastic with sugary sh-t inside. Sugar, salt and lots of sh-t that causes HUGE problems tp mental and physical health costing the NHS billions and billions and the UK economy billions and billions.
Government needs to dig deeper about the underlining problems that add billion and billions and billions to the tax-payer (whilst filling our towns, rivers, sea with plastic sh-t too).
November 7, 2021
A major is is that recycling is, well… rubbish (excuse the pun).
You have to wash things before they will recycle them. The list of thiongs they can’t recycle is long – many items really should be recyclable but for some reason they haven’t the technology to do so.
The onus on the householder to sort trash into categories is also flawed. Why not have prisoners doing something useful – they could sort trash (even just pushing it to the right place as it goes past on conveyor belts). This could be rewarded by reduced sentences for those who do it and do it well.
The operation would need to be under camera surveillance of course, to prevent the usual prisoner abuses or deliberate mis-sorting etc.
November 7, 2021
The other issue is that we now know that 50-80% of the world’s oxygen is produced by plankton. If the oceans pollute then we may have an existential crisis in the very short-term. Forget net zero, that’s nonsense, the oceans are the real environmental challenge.
November 9, 2021
Walk anywhere in the UK (just about) and you could be forgiven for doubting that there are any laws against littering or dog fouling. One can only imagine the squalour if there were no widespread perception that it’s somehow wrong to allow these things.