Litter is Disgusting – So are those responsible.

Litter is Disgusting – So are those responsible.

“Litter is Disgusting – So are those responsible” is the grammatically challenged slogan on every litter bin in my home town of Dublin, a town once notorious for littering which earned it the epithet “dear dirty Dublin.” Well it is now a changed town and it is targeting the anti social behaviour behind littering. There is no doubt littering deserves the anti social tag for it is a form of vandalism which destroys the quality of the public spaces enjoyed by us all as well as the public transport utilities such as the trains, buses and The Tube. Yet it appears in the UK to be little social stigma behind littering. Policing is focused on ignoring every “broken window” except those targeted by government and on Chief Constable’s bonus scorecards, local authority enforcement is nowhere to be seen in Central London and clusters of smokers around building entrances assert their God given right to throw their smoldering butts onto the pavement. Hey they have paid the tax on their fags so they are paying for the right to litter and get new lungs on the NHS!

Cigarette+Butt!

Also the growth of “Free” newspapers in the morning, evening and in between times often leaves Tube and train carriages looking like paper warehouses at close of play – what is the cost to the companies of “Free” newspapers and is there a more useless form of journalism – No wonder one of the London “Free’s”, The London Lite, is unerringly parodied on the website www.london-shite.com

But as well as trashing the environment with this last hurrah by a print media desperately trying to keep their market share the have also had the pernicious side effect of making littering socially acceptable. Indeed some branches of fast food chains “for convenience” won’t give you a tray for your food but insist on packaging up food consumed in as well. Indeed over packaging is a big issue, as http://www.overpackaging.com points out “The UK produces around 400 million tonnes of waste annually, most of which ends up in landfill sites. The time has come to put a stop to this completely unnecessary waste of resources. Manufacturers and retailer's main incentive for over packaging their goods is branding and marketing. Most modern consumers have grown used to this overpackaging and in the case of supermarket fruit and veg actually prefer to buy the more heavily packaged items as they are perceived to be "cleaner" than the unpackaged ones.”


Litter on the Tube

So instead of Green Guff let us really do something positive for the environment by tackling the related evils of the social acceptability of littering, the waste generated by “free” papers and junk mail and the packaging policies of industry and supermarkets.

Instead of recycling why not avoid the cycle in the first place? Let us now agree to humanely put down those two old friends who are well past their sell by date: Plastic Bags and Junk Mail.

In the Republic of Ireland a 15 cent tax on plastic shopping bags has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of euros in revenue. The Irish environment ministry estimated that about 1.2 billion free plastic bags were being handed out every year in the republic, leaving windblown bags littering Irish streets and the countryside. In the three months after the tax was introduced, shops handed out just over 23 million plastic bags - about 277 million fewer than normal, the government said. Think of it, in a small country like Ireland they have reduced plastic bag use by over 1 Billion bags a year – the equivalent figure for the UK would be in excess of 16 Billion bags of hydrocarbon derived products. This would reduce oil refinery output far more than Airline Passenger Duty or hybrid cars.

There is one obvious disadvantage. The UK would lose its “National Flower”, the plastic bags which grow on hedgerows, waste ground, concrete streets and every water course in the land. Och Aye, wee Gordon, an environmental win and more tax revenues, what is stopping you introducing a 15p plastic bag tax? Some well funded industry lobby group?

The UK's National Flower

The other quick win is self evident in every hallway in the land. Did you know over ½ million tonnes of junk mail is generated in the UK every year? 1 tonne of junk mail is the equivalent of 17 trees so that is eight and a half million trees which die in a needless silvicide each year! That’s 390,000 acres of forest! Put it another way: The average person in the U.K. receives 4kg of junk mail annually and 90% of all junk mail goes straight into the bin. That’s around 224 million kg of junk mail which immediately goes into our bins and that is a conservative estimate based on the dubious premise that the 10% of junk mail which is not immediately binned is in someway useful.

Last week my “Free” local paper come through the letter box with 3 colour inserts. Only there were 8 copies of two inserts and 11 copies of the other, 27 enclosures which went straight to bin. This is the junk mail equivalent of fly tipping and equally a form of anti-social behaviour worthy of being commemorated in the ASBO Hall of Shame. Two weeks away and as well as stamped addressed letters I find 37 items of what the Royal Mail calls “Door to Door Mailings” or unsolicited junk mail addressed to nobody or to that ubiquitous creature “The Occupier”!

So here is the modest proposal, ban “Door to Door Mailings” and compensate the Royal Mail and other delivery companies by doubling the postage on unsolicited mailings. Ban magazine & newspaper inserts, the advertisers will spend the same money in other ways and who knows you could be forcing them to spend their money more effectively.


Above all these initiatives are about changing behaviour. Shoppers will use reusable or paper bags and advertisers will spend their money in more effective ways than in winding up potential customers by creating avalanche risks in their hallways. The industry which styles junk mail as “Direct Mail” obviously has an advanced sense of humour and the joke is at our environment’s expense.

That’s it! Cut out more than 16 Billion plastic bags and 224 Million kg of junk mail a year and change the habits of a wasteful lifetime into the bargain. Now wouldn’t that cut back on copious hot air and save more than all the proposed environmental initiatives this year? Why are we waiting?

Oh, and one last behavioural change. Litter is Disgusting – So are those responsible.