UKC

I assume that most of us here are fed up and disgusted when we find plastic bottle and other litter discarded on the hills or other open spaces that we enjoy. I'm just curious how many actually remove it?

I know when I was was younger while I never acted in this way when I saw some rubbish like this I would be all disgusted that someone could act like this but I would just keep going. I dont know what got me started picking stuff up? Probably a feeling of wanting to return that immediate environment to its natural state. I know a few years ago I came across an elderly couple walking through the sand dunes with bags just picking stuff up. I thought good on you1 and then joined in for a while helping them. Nowdays when out walking if i see a bottle, can or  other bits of rubbish I try and pick it up and take to a bin/recycling container. Obviously if its really unpleasant/dangerous or needlles I leave well alone.

Has there been some sort of societal change that more people are picking stuff up? I hope so! anyway just curious how many are doing this now?

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I try to. The main thing that stops me is regularly forgetting to take anything I can carry the rubbish in. It's invariably wet and disgusting, and I'm not nice enough to put that in my main pack. I need to get into the habit of keeping a bin bag in my climbing pack all the time, because it's depressingly rare to go somewhere that doesn't have some rubbish to be removed. 

At Pavey Ark a few weeks ago, a bunch of lads serenaded us with their music and loud misogyny all day from the shore of the tarn, then capped off their dickishness by leaving all their rubbish behind in a bag. Why even bring a bin bag if you're not willing to take it away? We intended to carry it out, but sadly by the time we got to it the seagulls had ripped the bag apart so it couldn't be carried.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I had a walk along the Thames between Reading and Pangbourne yesterday. Not only was there a depressing amount of litter, but some dickheads had decided to set fire to the open trunks of a live, multi-trunk ash tree. It was still smouldering. I managed to use some of their discarded litter to fetch water from the river, and hopefully doused the burning. There was too much litter to contemplate carrying it to Pangbourne with me, and all the bins further along were overflowing. You carried all this shit to the river; you've eaten your snacks and drunk your beer; how hard would it be to carry the now empty rubbish home...?

In reply to Luke90:

Yes I get that. fortunately its pretty dry right now. I try to remember to keep a plastic bag in my pack for such eventuality. .I have sometimes made a mental note of the location or stashed somewhere and then later on the way down picked it up in plastic bag

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

There has been a change, concomitant with the  recent (last decade plus) wider extensive marketing of the outdoors (I include; manufacturers, magezines, papers, guidebook authors, instructors/guides, shops, websites and bloggers all as guilty parties), there has been an increase in litter away from the honeypots.

I was on a set of hills that would only appeal to Munro baggers the weekend before last, and passed three human shits with white flags within feet of the path. No attempt to get away from the path, hide/bury or take the paper away. I can remember only very, very occasionally coming across a Pooh on the hill, near a high path over previous decades. My partner also picked up half a dozen bits of rubbish, and rubbish used to be virtually non existent on ‘bagger only’ type routes.

That is the price we pay for others business development, and it’s appears we are meant to tolerate the push for inclusivity, wider demographic uptake and increased participation even if it pollutes and devalues our experience and the environment.

But it’s OK as people are make their names/money/gaining more membership , and I’ll be called elitist….….….turning into a grumpy old Victor Meldrew!

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

There's a very pretty ~6 mile walk round here that I've sort of adopted.  I have one of those litter picker claws and fill a bin bag about one a quarter.  It's amazing how fast it comes back.  

I wear a yellow tabard and people think it's ca community service order

In reply to Moacs:

I belong to a very active local litter picking group founded by the church during covid. I'm an atheist but they're lovely people. When off duty you just have to harden your heart and pass by or you would go nuts. In the hills I will pick up some stuff if possible, it does take remembering to have a plastic bag on board.

In reply to Pedro50:

This was a special pick organised yesterday to prevent river plastic on the Wear entering the sea. 55 bags collected.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I always bring something down; cans, bottles, wrappers but not tissues or organic stuff. I think everybody should get into the habit of bringing at least one item down.  Professional outfits should brief their parties. And we need more signage stressing the issue. 

Banana skins were the most popular rubbish item on the Ben a couple of weeks ago. People are still believing that biodegradable stuff is ok to leave on the hill. Interesting how they don't fling it away into the scree but just leave it by the path. 

One thing I noticed was the number of young 'uns carrying 3 litre bottles of water in their hands. Somebody should tell them about sacks.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I used to take my children into the local woods to do a bit of litter picking, they really enjoyed it, seeing it as a bit of a treasure hunt.  One day we found some old spoons, wife was going to bin them but I thought they looked interesting. Put them on the local police lost & found website, nobody claimed them so I sold them to a silversmith for £400, Karma eh

In reply to ScraggyGoat:

There's probably a new "brown tick" list or somesuch.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Meanwhile, in the Thames, Wet Wipe Island is finally being removed...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3365ndm123o

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

We clean our local crag,which is a popular dog walking and kids hang out area, every time we visit.

But i take industrial builders gloves and a bin bag. Most of the rubbish is cans, sweet/crisp bags and broken glass. Fortunately no toilet paper or needles yet.

Im a bit prissy about picking up stuff if I'm not prepared so probably don't do as much in the mountains as I should. Sorry

In reply to Very Wild Camper: in the lakes it used to be July / August phenomenon. 10 months a year I would marvel at how litter free most places were . For many years I was away climbing during the summer and so was oblivious to this  . Then the kids came along and I was around for all but a couple of weeks , “why go away when we live in such a nice place ?” . The first time I had to  clean up a toddler who had inadvertently encountered dog or human waste I think I sensed thr summer effect . I still believe that most people wouldn’t dream of leaving thier sh1t behind it’s just the minority that does is getting bigger .  What’s particularly noticeable in the summer is the volume of stuff that’s clearly been thrown out of car windows on the verges outside of the honey pot towns (Keswick , Ambleside and to slightly lesser extent cockermouth) . Wander around the shops . Buy various food item . Finish eating in the car on the way out and discard packaging immediately.  To the Op - always pick up bottle and cans ( crush and put in the large lid pocket of my pod black ice . Occasionally forget to remove . Which is nice  .

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

By far the most impressive example of this I've come across was Rob Greenwood in Cheedale about five years ago.

People were tutting about how there was a horrible pile of toilet paper and excrement. Rob ask where, then shot off, bagged it up and carried it out. He should be knighted IMO.

On a far less heroic note, I noticed that when I did a fairly thorough litter pick at Roche Abbey, it took a long time before fresh litter came back. I think litter begets litter. People are much more likely to drop litter if there is already plenty about.

I'm also struck by how litter droppers often have really pristine cars and clothes. I'm sniffy about litter but my car is like a skip. Litter droppers are also often the nicest friendliest people. I'd like to aspire to making the impression to them, that people with dirty cars can be decent too.

In reply to stone elworthy:

I guess the connection between pristine cars and litter thrown out of cars is kind of obvious.  (Although of course it's also possible to keep your car pristine by simply putting rubbish in a bag!)

For litter that's chucked out of cars, I'd suggest a slight change in the law - make it an offence for the registered keeper of a car to throw (or allow litter to be thrown) from the car.  That way any time someone gets a bit of dashcam footage of a bit of litter being chucked out of a car, submitting it to the police would give them enough evidence to issue a FPN.  (They'd just need to see litter coming out of the car and the registration number, with no need to identify the driver or the person who actually did the littering.)

Currently, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, nothing to do with cars and road traffic seems to get any enforcement unless it can be done with a camera.

"Sir Robert Greenwood" has a nice ring to it.  If you're going to lobby for that I'll write to my MP too.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I try to pick up litter when I'm out - very often it's just a case of putting it in a bin 50m away. I need to remember to always take a bin bag for when on more remote outings. 

Also you can only do it up to a point - it's fine to pick up a few things whilst on your walk / run but if you stop for everything it becomes very stop-start, takes a lot of time and eventually becomes a litter pick instead of what you originally intended (likely with a curtailed route).

Unless of course you've headed out purely to collect litter, e.g. a beach clean. 

In reply to Lhod:

I aspire to ‘take two things out’, that way you’ve made a difference but it’s not a big chore. If everyone did that everywhere would be spotless. Unless there’s some lunatic out there mass dumping, it’s got to work!

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I have become more militant*/active as I have got older. I now always pack my Big Agnes "Trash Can" which came free with my tent, a big bin bag in case there is a lot of stuff, some gloves and a couple of "poo bags". 

As Stone says, and all the research shows, litter begets litter so pickling stuff up will make a difference long term.

There was a good discussion at the BMC Basecamp fireside talk on wild camping this weekend with Eben from the BMC and the marketing director from Terra Nova** that covered similar ground to this thread. The solution seems to be:

1. Tidy up litter you see - proven to reduce the chance of more litter dropped.
2. Education.

Solution 2 seem like the sticking point, in that there is no money for "formal" education, so how that message gets across is going to be challenging in the social media world in which we now live.

*My most militant was returning just dropped litter back through the open window from whence it came. It was a rash decision but I was so cross with the volume of litter that day combined wit the cars proximity to a bin pushed me over the edge.

**I'm sorry, I didn't catch her name

In reply to galpinos:

The solution seems to be:

this is the bit I disagre with, and I'll explain why.

this is a very common comment, and comes up every time on this subject, and on the face of it seems to make sense. but under the surface it starts to fall appart. just what is it that you think people should be educated on? dropping litter is bad, or the beauty of nature? you're not telling anyone anything they don't already know.

people drop litter not because they're not aware of what they are doing, it's because they don't care. the rational behind things like the giant piles of camp-shyte left lying at the side of loch lomond is it's not their land, their presense is barely tolerated, and they won't be back; so what do you expect. 

you can't "teach" people to care. the way to motivate peole to look after something is to foster a sense of ownership and self respect. I'd call this culture rather than education, and this would have to come from a change in mindset. unfortunately, taking some of the earlier posts on this thread, we're not going to get there if we keep blaming influencers, big business, and media for encouraging the wrong sorts of people.

Litter is a big annoyance for me, especially when you compare it to France and Spain which seem spotless compared. We were in the Malvern's this weekend and picked up several empty drinks bottles - none of them we carried for more than a couple of hundred metres before coming across a bin. 

This is getting more into the realm of fly tipping, but in my day job as an engineer we often get contractors to do 'community work' for us when doing larger projects. A year or so ago we put a footpath / cycle route in and as part of it did a litter pick. In the space of one day we managed to fill an entire 16 tonne grab lorry with rubbish - ranging from drinks cans, needles, an entire (broken) shed that someone had thrown over the bottom garden fence, burnt motorcycles, mattresses. you name it.... 

In reply to galpinos:

I've been impressed when I've seen "outdoor_celebs" going out of their way to promote responsible actions.

When Shauna Coxsey was on `CountryFile BBC TV a few years ago, her take home soundbite was don't climb on wet gritstone. 

I've also seen bouldering videos with a closing scene of brushing off all tick-marks and as much other chalk as possible. 

Perhaps incidental, on camera, litter picking like that might also help. Maybe next time Eddie Hall or Faz Apefoo go to the Roaches on YouTube, they could walk into the sunset picking litter as they go.

In reply to daWalt:

I'm also very uncomfortable with viewing anyone as "wrong sorts of people". I want places I visit to be friendly and welcoming for everyone.

Why some people care about litter and some don't seems complex and mysterious to me. I'm not sure about a sense of ownership being behind it. After all, as I said, I'm content for my car to be like a skip.

The fact that people are less likely to drop litter when they don't see other litter, suggests that fitting in with social norms plays a big part. I remember when I was at school, some other children bridled when teachers said littering was bad. I suppose they identified in some way as being litterers. Maybe their parents and older siblings dropped litter. Perhaps they didn't like disrespect being shown towards something done by people they looked up to.

I'm guessing successful education on littering would have to be welcoming and inclusive towards people who are currently litterers. 

In reply to daWalt:

I actually don't think we disagree that much and in my head, "education" and "culture" were included in my "education" point. I might be a bit more optimistic though!

Living in a city, I think a lot of people living in an urban environment see litter as normal, as par for the course. Their culture is that litter and littering is acceptable in the urban environment where they live, and they bring this belief with them to the outdoors. Changing this "culture" to one where littering is not acceptable is what I mean via education.

I would also add that if we make these people feel unwelcome and unwanted, they will be less likely to treat the places we love with the respect we would like to see. If we can bring them into the "community", to allow them to build that love and relationship with the outdoors and our "wild" spaces, only then will we be able to change their "culture".

I realise this seems quite wishy washy but I don't think slagging people off and telling them they aren't welcome and they shouldn't do it is going to change things for the better, it's not excatly "winning hearts and minds"!

100%!

In reply to stone elworthy:

yep, people don't like to be criticised or told they're bad when they're just doing what everone else is doing. 

when I was at school, both primary and 2nd, just droping whatever you had in your hand on the floor was the done thing. this was just normal, and it was a totallly middle of the road type of school. every "litter is bad" mesage or campaign was at best ignored, or openly moked. 

it's been something I'v been thinking about on and off ever since, how this sort of attitude and normalcy can come about. I don't know if things are any different today.

(digression alert) on the plus side, when I was a kid dogshit everywhere was another fact of life. thats's "better" now - sort of... 

In reply to galpinos:

It isn't acceptable in a city, either. So much so that it is illegal.

But, like so much other law, it is not enforced.

In reply to galpinos:

 "education" and "culture" were included in my "education" 

I think you went to a better school than me  

In reply to ScraggyGoat:

I think that marketing thesis is pretty easy to demolish as the main cause. The outdoors has always been extensively marketed in my experience in the last 40+ years in magazines, TV and radio shows; and on the internet in the last 25. There is a much closer correlation with the rise of influencers (more self marketing than direct encouragement of participation), generating many honey-pots. Hence I would say changes in marketing are maybe a bigger part of the problem in some areas.

The biggest factor in the last decade seemed to me to be covid causing big increases in ordinary folk, who didn't previously spend much time in the UK countryside, and who found it to be a good place to go (impacting on litter, inconsiderate parking, pressures on MRT, etc).

Having seen some extensive results of the more disgusting toilet habits on the continent, on popular crag approaches, I wonder about those claiming France and Spain are always much better. My personal UK shit bugbear is those who bag dogshit in plastic and then leave it.

Unlike da Walt, I am optimistic education, alongside clean-ups, role models (and fines if necessary), can make a difference; even if it won't stop everyone. I've seen it on crags where I've been involved in regular clean-ups when often talking to other visitors. Places that look a mess gather rubbish more quickly.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/litter-in-scotland-why-are-we-so-rubbi...

This piece seems quite appropriate to the conversation and quotes some interesting studies.

One of the studies quoted observed people littering before asking them to take part in the study and then asked them if they had ever littered and some people said never, just moments after being observed littering! 

"in a study carried out in 2009….

‘…only 33% of those observed littering just moments before agreeing to be interviewed, admitted that they had littered within the previous 24 hours, while 28% told the interviewer that they had never littered in their life’ "

Does that mean people are ashamed, don't realize they're doing it or just liars? 

In reply to Andrew95:

I've seen more toilet paper at the side of Pyrenean footpaths than I have in any UK national park.

In reply to Andrew95:

I've seen more toilet paper at the side of Pyrenean footpaths than  in any UK national park.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I normally try to pick stuff up but it does depend on whether I can actually carry it out in a sanitary manner.

On a semi-related note, I was climbing at Turningstone Edge last Sunday, and had to pass through an overgrown rhododendron. The best “handhold” on it, which is also where the sling I put on rested, had a poo bag on it… I did try to remove it but it was well embedded… 😖

In reply to galpinos:.

Tidy up litter you see - proven to reduce the chance of more litter dropped.

Agreed Galpinos (and great to catch up with you at BMC Basecamp)

Maybe a third part to the solution is to engage with the brands behind the litter to encourage them to play their part in educating their customers and reducing prevalence (eg through deposit return schemes). This approach was at the heart of the recent BMC Yr Wyddfa Big Clean Up and seems to be bearing fruit.

https://thebmc.co.uk/en/big-clean-up-2025-post-event

Cheers, Dom 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

My brother is a part of the Cardiff Rivers Group charity which organises litter picks, stream cleans and habitat cleans most weekends (and some weekdays too) around the Cardiff area. The amount of rubbish they can pick up in a couple of hours is astounding. Also, they can easily collect 500+ NOS canisters each month, all of which gets sent for recycling and the money earned put back into the local community.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

You're right. It seems a particularly French thing, and they're more those tissues from packs than loo roll. I see these all over the French Alps, Pyrenees, Britanny, etc, right beside the paths. My feeling is that the French must simply not register them, like we don't register dead leaves on footpaths or brilliant white farmhouses in picturesque landscapes.

In reply to galpinos:

I've grappled with this issue for a while now. Certainly going after people who litter and telling them off is not going to do it. The urban environment theory has some merit to it. In the last couple of years my circumstances mean that I'm spending increasing amounts of time in Sweden/Norway both very clean counties. I wonder if there's a cultural element to this. Both have extremely open access to countryside and forests. I wonder if being welcomed in the countryside fosters a societal responsibility as opposed to the grudging "keep to the footpath" mentality we mostly get here? 

In reply to owlart:

You see this is what makes me somewhat optimistic for the future. Go back a few decades and initiatives like this didnt seem to exist. Now they are becoming more common. So maybe hope for culture change but it will be slow though

In reply to Offwidth:

And the Insta LMBY crowd?

In reply to Jordan-L:

I think this is the most likely; they know it is wrong. Which somewhat negates the education argument.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

From my experience of working in Sweden, it seems that the culture of having a summer house*, those summer houses being rural and the time spent there being very outdoorsy probably leads to a different relationship with nature to someone from a sink estate in East Manchester**, for example.

I would also say that not all the people littering/fly camping etc have the same "wants" out of their time outdoors, and some misbehavior will be through ignorance and some through just not caring. Those that transgress through ignorance could probably be reached through education, those who just don't care probably not and might only respond to enforcement.

*I'm sure my Swedish counter part said over 50% of Swedes had summer houses but I may be wrong.

In reply to daWalt:

Laughing Emoji.....

Modern education can come from a lot of places not just school, e.g. social media via one's favourite influencers, favourite brands, even the BMC!

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

A bit more than bottles and cans by Llyn Du on Rhinog Fawr last Sunday. A full house of brand new (crap) camping equipment, disposable barbecues, used and unused toilet rolls etc, everything stuffed into a rolled up new tent. All I had was running kit but a quick call, and Rob (not Greenwood), came up with a big sack, bin liners and lots of baler twine. Quite a carry,  but strangely satisfying.

In reply to daWalt:

The "clean-up after your dog" phenomenon is fantastic. 

I'm really struck by how there seems to be a cascade effect where behaviours go from being normal to being unthinkable in just a few years. Some changes are great, such as people no longer being openly racist or homophobic. Other changes sadden me, such as no one hitch-hiking and children needing an adult to take them to school etc.

Could it have been predicted which behaviours would change so dramatically?

In reply to stone elworthy:

Panic not, my daughters primary school allow them to walk themselves to/from school from Yr 5 (so 9yrs old). Most children do, though they are not on their own, they normally meet up and walk in as an ever increasing in size chaotic feral mass......

In reply to Myfyr Tomos:

Yeah, the carry it in, but CBA to carry it out lot. Bit like some modern festivals. Someone else will clear up after them.

In reply to daWalt:

Good lord.

In my head can hear even the coolest of my late 90s/00s teachers bellowing down the corridor at whichever wee scrote did this...

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I met a new acquaintance tonight by picking up litter! I was walking home along the canal path with my very long sea kayak on a trolley. I spotted a bottle and stopped to pick it up, blocking the path as I did so. I apologised to the lady who was approaching, and that was the opening to a whole conversation about kayaks and the fact that she lived opposite some of our other kayak friends. 

So it seems it's a good way to make new friends!

In reply to Pete Pozman:

A bottle in one hand and a phone in the other.

In reply to Very Wild Camper: this is in response to sort of everybody above tonight whilst waiting for my lift from the base of the wslk in I picked up : a red bull can ( already crushed - why did you f ing bother ?  ) , a costa cup , a crunchy wrapper and a half eaten bag of cheap sweets . So here’s my idea : Costa , Starbucks,  red bull etc have to pay 10 or 20p p for the return of their vessels . Add it the cost if you like . I dont think it would encourage the scroats  not to chuck them but wound reward thier nemisis . 

In reply to peppermill:

At my school we had litter picking duty about once a month up until 6th form when the duties became things like supervising younger years queueing or managing forms before the teacher arrived. 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I did snakes and ladders in Dinorwig slate this weekend for the first time in four years. The difference in number of visitors and amount of litter was amazing. It has snowballed. Admittedly, the first time was just after covid. This is somewhere that relatively few people ever properly explored just a few years ago and now it is just another well visited tourist destination, presumably due to influencers, the outdoor media and word of mouth. Being technically off limits means it’ll never have any waste facilities or formal litter picking. 
 

The irony of complaining about litter in a landscape which is essentially defined by another form of litter isn’t lost on me but it was incredibly depressing to see. As ever, we carried back what we could but we hadn’t brought a bin bag (kick myself for forgetting).
 

Later that day near town, we were behind a guy who chucked a Stella can on the footpath. He was about 20-30m from a council litter bin up the path. We made an audible reaction. The guy turned around and apologised and said he would’ve put it in the bin but he wasn’t going that way, before walking off the path. Boggled the mind. 
 

not really adding much to the discussion but it is cathartic anyway 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I wonder if schools took kids out litter picking more, would that change attitudes? Once the kids themselves are cleaning it up, will they be less inclined to drop it and even start taking parents etc to task over it? Primary age seems the time to do it. 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Maybe the UK needs a Burkina Faso style clean up week. Basically the whole country spent a week tackling the huge issue they had and then holds regular national clean up days to try and maintain it. I think we'd maybe struggle with that level of community cohesion.

In reply to girlymonkey:

I remember taking part in an "operation steam clean" as a kid. It was a big event and run by all the local scout and guide etc. groups. Miles of the brook and its banks, running through a local park, were cleaned and it seemed to be a great success. It certainly opened my eyes to the scope of the problem. I've no idea how long it takes to build back up again or whether it needs redoing every now and then though. 

I'm not sure if H&S would allow an event like that now on account of the hazardous nature of some of the litter, glass, needles etc. 

In reply to captain paranoia:

The difference being that at a music festival someone will clear up after them.  Maybe that's part of the problem.   Festival organisers might not like it but they don't have much choice, a ridiculous proportion of the tents at most festivals just get abandoned, more than half.  Some have started to push back against it, but they're trying to turn around something with a lot of inertia.  (In hindsight perhaps they should have found a way to crack down on people abandoning their tents decades ago when hardly anybody ever did.)

There's a pervasive myth that they get recycled, so that makes it ok to leave them.  A very small amount of the material actually does, the rest goes straight into landfill.  eg: https://www.retribe.co.uk/blogs/news/what-happens-to-the-tents-that-get-lef...

Nobody explicitly markets tents as "disposable" but manufacturers and retailers often sell "festival tents" as the cheapest ones they do.  It seems like a little tacit nod and a wink somehow. (And of course supermarkets, Halfords etc., sell crappy tents even cheaper than the cheapest offerings at Decathlon, Go Outdoors etc.)

In reply to Holdtickler:

You just have to do appropriate risk assessments. I have done beach cleans with kids at an outdoor centre. You have litter grabbers, gloves, rings for holding the bags open and you brief them on what hazards you might find. Anything dangerous, they let an adult know and we pick it up instead. Absolutely allowed with proper group management. 

The kids usually actually quite enjoy it, it becomes a bit of a competition as to who can fill a bag the quickest 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Another little observation. How sweetly litter louts smell. Tidiness and hygiene are exclusively to do with a personal bubble they inhabit. 

By the way, people are not worse now than they were before. I remember Keep Britain Tidy and "litter lout" from the Sixties.  The problem wasn't as bad because there was less to throw away.  A lot of the packaging we buy now hadn't been invented. 

 A case study. I was head of a school which had a big litter problem in the playground.  I closed the tuck shop. The litter disappeared overnight. 

The businesses making it impossible not to buy their packaging should have to pay a litter levy.  This surcharge should be detailed on the packaging with a message explaining how much money local government has to waste on clearing it up.

In reply to Pete Pozman:

I was going to mention a similar experience, unfortunately not an option for many now, since many canteen services have been outsourced and part of the franchise agreement doesn't allow that.

In reply to Pete Pozman:

"Yeah, but it's making a job for someone, innit?"

In reply to Pete Pozman:

Nice idea, but how many would read it? Then I can imagine the 'Oh well, if I'm paying for someone to clear it up anyway, might as well get my moneys worth'....then lobs it in the bushes. 

I'm not sure what the answer is, because I struggle to get my head into the mentality of people who drop litter or travel to lovely places, only to trash it. 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

People litter because there is no comeback. We need a zero tolerance on litter. I honestly think if anyone is caught throwing rubbish out of a vehicle then they should have their vehicle confiscated, or a £10000 fine if the car was worth less than that. Money could be used to set up cctv in litter black spots. Companies that encourage litter such as takeaways that provide paper and plastic cups and other food packaging need to have that packaging taxed, the money going to tidy up. Finally if litter had a value such as cans and bottles they would be less likely to be discarded. We need a return scheme as there used to be for pop bottles in the sixties. We used to collect bottles and claim the cash in the shop.

In reply to Root1:

In countries where such nominal deposits exist, it seems to form a supplementary income; IIRC, TobyA struggled to find discarded fans in the street to make drinks can burners, when he was still in Finland...

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

When out and about in Aviemore, I always carry a roll of bin liners to pick up litter.  It amazes me that both locals and tourists will pollute this marvellous environment in full view of the Cairngorms and within the bounds of the National Park.  I tend to draw the line at dog poo bags which, rather than being carried to a bin, are now more often left on footpaths or hanging from trees.

Thankfully, once in the mountains, and beyond the physical reach of campervanners and grockles, I rarely see litter.  And then, if I do, I pick it up and carry it back to campervanland.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

As maintenance organiser at Corrour Bothy in the Cairngorms for almost 15 years (and volunteer before that) I've long burnt/removed all the rubbish and abandoned kit I find there, but a few years ago started paying attention to the amount of litter in the mountains generally and picking up all I could, from large items to micro-litter such as cigarette ends and corners off sweetie packets. I'm cautious about tissues, which have generally being used at one end or another, but even then they can mostly be picked up with care.
Like other posters here I usually forget a bag for this, but isn't that what the mesh pockets at the sides of rucksacks are for?
Curiously, I seldom pick up rubbish in town (though I did during covid walks).

In reply to Removed User:

Less visited by people, I think you mean.

The mountains are not "beyond the physical reach" of visitors to the area if they're not also beyond yours.  Also if you think it's only visitors, and not locals, who drop litter you're deluding yourself.

In reply to deepsoup:

But, "It amazes me that both locals and tourists will pollute this marvellous environment in full view of the Cairngorms and within the bounds of the National Park."

In reply to deepsoup:

Indeed - and the casual and oft-heard apportioning of blame on to certain categories, eg "kids", is also misplaced. I regularly pick up litter in two contexts: on the hill (mostly Ochils, as that's where I spend maybe 80% of my hill time), and also along the half-mile stretch of rural road close to our house. I do this pretty much every morning, and often in the evening too - I have a grabber and I like to have a morning legstretch to get me going after breakfast so I might as well do something useful while I'm at it.

Having litter-picked up the road here for years now there's rarely lots - I've kept on top of it, and a friend half a mile away does the next stretch. But there is almost always something, and it tends to fall into just a few categories. Crisp packets / sweetie wrappers (which probably is the kids en route to school); soft drink cartons / food wrappers thrown out of cars and vans. Building-related stuff - almost certainly from works vans and lorries. And cans. Here we have a mysterious G&T can drinker who chucks away around 100 empties a year, all of which I pick up, rinse and recycle. I don't know who this is and it's not the worst litter - is quite clean - but there's some odd psychological thing in play where it's almost always on the non-pavement side of the road (making a cyclist perhaps the most likely candidate), and the general feeling around here is that it's someone who can't take the empties home due to getting domestic grief, but they're keen to see them recycled as they're often left close to the two bins along that stretch of road. There is one quite shocking form of litter: pairs of used medical gloves, almost certainly chucked out of a car by a carer as they leave the village. This doesn't happen very often, but I do find them every two or three months. It's a long dead-end stretch of road, so all this comes either from locals or people visiting the village, rather than someone just passing through - apart from cyclists and pedestrians who have the option of going to/from Stirling via a footbridge. 

As for hill litter, I try and remember to take a bag but I don't take the grabber. What I find / bring down often leaves me thinking it's not people new to hillgoing, but experienced folk and regulars. I've a lot of time for hill runners - and know quite a few of them - but on the Ochils the energy gel sachets are quite often found, also plastic water bottles just chucked away into the tussocks.

One other thing I'd say is that with the local rubbish there's a very clear demarcation in terms of where it's chucked. We get some in the village for sure, on the roads/pavements, but the cans or wrappers or whatever are never lobbed into anyone's garden. Shoved into a hedge is the limit in that regard. But the instant these unseen people get out of the village and alongside the fields, it's open season. I can see why the farmer gets grumpy, and I have considerable sympathy for him. Relating to that, we have a 10K race coming past the house ever autumn. It then goes along the rural stretch, turns, and comes back in. In the first couple of years my better half and I filled a couple of bin bags with empty water bottles and gel sachets after the race. Words were had with the organisers - I know one of them - and things have improved in recent years, as they do their own post-race tidy-up. But there's still quite a bit for us to clear every time - and again it's all in the farmland stretch, never in people's gardens. One would think serious regular runners would know better, but it appears not.

In reply to Root1:

We need a return scheme as there used to be for pop bottles in the sixties. We used to collect bottles and claim the cash in the shop.

This was still going well into the 80s when I was a kid with a 10p refund on corona pop bottles. Used to go out hunting for them.

In reply to Dave Hewitt:

It's the same in Kendal. There's a stretch of road between Carus Green Golf Club and the start of Burneside that marks the end of Kendal proper. A short, wooded, windy stretch of road, the verge gets treated on both sides to a mix of cans, bottles, coffee junk, vapes, the usual, all tossed out of car windows, as no one walks along here as it's dark, narrow and a bit dangerous. I assume people think, right, town's over, it's OK to chuck it here. Cycling past all this crap gets me depressed so I've claimed this stretch as my own and head out yearly in April with rubber gloves and a hi-vis jacket and fill two of those blue recycling bags from the council.

Earlier in the summer I walked to top of hill. It tool me a good hour to reach the summit. The top had a huge cairn/rockpile on it and I sat down to eat my lunch. And what did I see stuffed in/under the rocks? Three beer bottles, the 500ml real ale ones!

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Mountaineering Scotland has its "Tak It Hame" campaign.

https://www.mountaineering.scot/conservation/campaigns/tak-it-hame

WRT gels and bottles, one should of course be careful but gel wrappers are easily whipped from your fingers on a windy day, to vanish off faster than you can follow. Bottles less so... I have taken part in running events that state they will disqualify anyone caught littering. 

In reply to fimm:

Funny how they often vanish off into gaps between stones in summit cairns...

On that basis about half the field in our local 10K would be disqualified! I suspect people seeing pro runners in televised marathons etc chucking stuff away willy-nilly doesn't help. In my running days - 35-40 years ago, admittedly - there were hardly any road races with water stations, you just took your own bottle and clung on to it for dear life.

In reply to felt:

I've come across various versions of people (usually visiting from big cities, and usually of a left-wing persuasion) saying things along the lines of (a) tut-tut look at that plus (b) it's the council's job. I've even had one instance of someone semi-chastising me for picking up litter (again it's the council's job).

At least on the plus side one occasionally finds money - coins, fivers, tenners and even a couple of years ago three £20 notes blowing about. Doesn't happen very often, but I count it as wages.

In reply to Dave Hewitt:

You'd be waiting a long time! The first time I did this stretch the rubbish was borderline archaeological, although I've never found anything of value myself. Luckily, lots of people voluntarily clear up the roads nearby so it's a fairly common sight. 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I have a net mesh on one of my packs which holds the almost inevitable balloon litter which is always wet. 

In reply to The Watch of Barrisdale:

 Very nearly a line from New Model Army's 'Christian Militia' there.

In reply to Ridge:

Or one of my dad's favourites 

" A fire on one end and a fool on the t'other"

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Just collected this from my local crag, I do this every 6 months or so and barley scratch the surface 😢

But then again, it is Mansfield......

In reply to deepsoup:

Always a big shyte lurking near popular van stops

In reply to ebdon:

Bouldering mat & rack(?)?

Litter picking swag result...

In reply to Fat Bumbly 2.0:

Right enough - I bring down one or two of those from the Ochils each year, usually snagged on the fence wires. There was a plastic Buddha in the cairn on Ben Ever yesterday (I left that where it was).

In reply to captain paranoia:

Yep, a bit of a random combo, I was (very badly) working/cleaning a high ball thing.

In reply to ebdon:

There is something about the mag-lime localities and extreme littering. When I wrote above about many litter-droppers being the nicest friendliest people, I had in mind people walking/picnicking etc near mag-lime climbing places. 

In reply to ebdon:

Sorry, it was a feeble attempt at humour; that you had picked up the mat and rack during your litter pick...

In reply to captain paranoia:

Oh god.... the thought of using any crag swag from Pleasly, there's only so much hand sanitizer and bleach in the world. Bad things have happened there (unless you are a teenager from Mansfield who I imagine had a great time)

In reply to Dave Hewitt:

Fair enough. That's not acceptable.

Pretty much always will come back with something.. even from short morning dog walks I will usually pick something up... 

Litter does make me (I think rationally) furious

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

If you make it this far down the thread… I try to carry one of those charity bags that come through the letterbox. I always feel better after filling a bag up, leaving a place better than I found it. 

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

Might have struggled to carry this bit of 'litter' out...

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

We have anti littering laws in the UK, but how often do we see them enforced? I know the police are heavily undermanned, and generally overworked, and littering is considered a very low priority "crime" but it's still a crime. If people get away with "minor crime"doesn't this open the door towards their being prepared to move on into  more "serious crime"? Littering is anti social, and society is increasingly accepting, tolerating and ignoring anti social crime - littering being one of the most evident of  anti-social behaviours. 

Maybe it is time that the enforcement agencies - police, councils, courts etc, started treating the "minor" crime much more seriously when it comes to arresting, fining and prosecuting perpetrators? Not only by  punishing them - but by shaming them publicly on conviction - photographs of them and naming them in the press in the same way that local newspapers publish the names and home towns of vermin convicted of drunk or drug driving? Forcing mountain litter culprits to attend and participate on mountain litter picks might also be an apt punishment ? They might even begin to understand....

I do voluntary work which brings me into regular contact with overseas tourists and , and one of the most common comments about Britain is what a beautiful country we live in, but what a pity it is that this image is being ruined by littering.

We have become a dirty nation, which is shameful.

A few years ago I attended the South Africa v Japan Rugby World Cup rugby match in Brighton. Japan won.  A large proportion of the crowd were Japanese. I was struck by how at the end of the match, the Japanese crowd went through the stands clearing the areas where they had been sitting of all litter, unlike the areas where mostly Brits, South Africans and others had been sitting and where a disgusting amount of litter had been left behind.

Anyway, back to the OP - Good post! Yes, where possible I do try to pick up litter, and I try to remember to carry some surgical gloves and litter bags in my day sac. Sometimes I do forget in the rush to get ready in the morning, and have to tell myself to do better!

Not just us. On Toms Cairn near Ballater last week and there were 11 sheep worrying notices in one small area. Now I sympathise deeply with the farmer but 10 of the signs would be litter

In reply to Dave Hewitt:

I got in brushing rage over excess chalk at Blackstone Edge once, found a tenner shortly after on the way down. The sun shines on the righteous.

In reply to steveriley:

Even small amounts can feel very satisfying. I had a not-much-fun 6am session at A&E a week ago, and on eventually emerging into the sunshine at lunchtime I found 5p on the hospital forecourt. It fair cheered me up.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

On Contain Deposit Schemes, one was introduced a couple of years ago where I live, the effect is remarkable. Basically you get 10-cents for each drink container you return. The result has been that most/all bottles and cans get collected and returned. 

Now obviously some people can't be arsed to chase a 10c payment, so there are baskets that you can drop a can in, anyone can then take the contents of the basket and get the payment. 

Not the complete answer to poor behaviors, but a really good step in the right direction.

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

We have had quite a lot of plastic washing up on our beach this week due to the non-stop southerly winds (it takes quite a while for it to reach our end of the loch, so we are usually pretty clean up here).

So on Sunday, I put a wee note on the community facebook page just saying that the winds had brought quite a bit of litter up, I had filled and binned a bag, but if anyone fancied doing likewise during the week then we would probably all benefit from it. 

Today, I took my bag with me for the dog walk and filled the bag while playing fetch with the dog. I noticed there was significantly less plastic than I had seen when I passed this morning (I had forgotten my bag at that point). So that was very heartening. And then as I left the end of the beach, a couple went down onto the beach at the opposite end and started doing the same. 

Nice to see that a wee prompt really seems to have had an impact and people are just quietly getting it all cleaned up as it washes in People are pretty nice, on the whole!

In reply to Very Wild Camper:

I have a couple of small bin bags in my climbing bag. When I leave a crag I always try to fill one.

In reply to girlymonkey:

My Dorset coast haunt has a few old huts at the end of a long track, by the beach. There is usually a 1 tonne woven bag for collecting beach rubbish, that the locals take away on the back of their quad. Content ranges from bottles to nets, to large floats...

Some of the washed up bottles are in Thai or similar script, but have obviously not been in the water long, so probably dumped from passing ships.