40 replies to this topic

[dollarjuice]

It makes me depressed. It's ALWAYS there no matter where you go. I just don't understand why it's so hard to put it in a bin for some people?

I've even personally gone to the effort of cleaning this particular 50-100m stretch of road before, it took maybe 3 or 4 days for it to get this bad again...

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[Fluss]

Not all people are gifted with proper vision, sad but true.
In Sweden there is this thing called 1 litter/day which means that u always should pick up 1 piece of litter laying around every day.

Neat idea, haven't practiced it myself though.

Edited by Fluss, 30 August 2011 - 12:44 PM.

[tripsis]

You should see India.



That water was black, completely black. Not dark brown, but black.

[dollarjuice]

I know tripsis it's horrible. But the thing is here in Australia almost all have the option to put their rubbish in the bin.
In slums and other places like that they don't have any real garbage collection. Unlike us where most people's trash gets removed for them once a week from their home. So easy and yet, 'too much effort'.

[tripsis]

I agree and sympathise with your position. Most people are lazy, self-absorbed and uncaring about the environment around them.

[gerbil]

Don't go working in any river systems mate haha it's full on, and it's not even just stormwater waste, deliberate dumping is quite a frequent occurrence from inner city out into the bush and then you've got industry storm pipes going in too, which from what you find at the end, seems filter systems are just not in place.

I was going to make a professional picture book about it all, maybe will one day, just a bugger i can't carry a camera around constantly and log all my areas cruzily over time then easily put it all together instead if it being a huge project at once, make it a breeze over time.

Full bottles of engine oil, paint cans, chemical drums, computers, tvs, draino, domestic cleaners, industrial cleaners, cars, bikes, then ya can get into the tangled animals.

As hard as it is, and i generally can't take my advice, try not to let it get you down, 'cause it only takes 1 person to undo all the hard work of others, and they will always exist in our society, there are actually people that actively try and degrade areas for various reasons, we are just not conscious people and we work hard to keep it that way. They'll issue another liquor license soon. ooh that's a cheap stab

[chnt]

without litter, how will the school kids partake in clean up australia day?

think of the kids.

[qualia]

i'm human. do you hate me?

[Frank leDank]

i'm human. do you hate me?

huh?

as for the litter issue, the thing that gets me is the lack of recycling, not the litter itself. legitimate rubbish is going to end up in the ground anyway eventually (admittedly in a better controlled and managed area). but the reality is that every item humans make is going to end up making a shitty shitty mess somewhere, and relatively soon, too. who will manage the tip when humans are gone?

with this in mind i think the most important thing we can do is recycle everything possible, to reduce the amount of new items getting made. personally i follow the swedish rule, but only with recyclable things. mostly because i know that if they DO get picked up, they will end up in the landfill bin instead of the recycling bin. even right next to the recycling depot near my house.

some people are just...jerks.

[Ulca]

i have a habit of "binning" random things i see as i walk around my area near the creek (rubbish that is clearly rubbish and not a syringe).

I figure, i cant make the area better (Its been spiraling for 20 odd years apparently), but, i can do my part to stop making it worse .. Figure, 2 or 3 more people doing "their part" to not make it worse would make a huge difference in this particular lil area i moved into sum 2 years ago...

[FancyPants]

I can't stand the blatant disregard to the environment so many people observe. My car's floor is FILTHY. Because I NEVER throw rubbish out the window.

[Marcel]

If you go through this thread, dollar, including your own first post, you'll find that humanity ain't as bad as it sometimes seems.

[etherealdrifter]

think of the tip people.......who's gunna take care of the tip when we are gone?
good one Frank.

[woof woof woof]

the problem with humantity is tht most of us are good people,... it's just that there are soooo many good people with little faults,.... with all those little faults amounting to one big pile of problems.

Where I live there is allot of trash on the streets. But it is not as bad as it used to be.

Haha - hey fancypants,.... same with my car! I just throw everything on the floor of the pax seat.

[Teotzlcoatl]

NOTHING PISSES ME OFF MORE THAN PEOPLE THROWING DOWN TRASH!

[Roopey]

as for the litter issue, the thing that gets me is the lack of recycling, not the litter itself. legitimate rubbish is going to end up in the ground anyway eventually (admittedly in a better controlled and managed area). but the reality is that every item humans make is going to end up making a shitty shitty mess somewhere, and relatively soon, too. who will manage the tip when humans are gone?

I agree. I'm so sick of people getting on their high-horse, "Stop fucking littering, I hate you, don't be a tosser!" Don't you people realize that whether you throw something in the bin or throw it on the street, you are still littering? Just because it's all hidden out of sight and out of mind, doesn't mean that it's not there anymore! Get over yourself. If you don't like trash, don't use disposable items, go out and buy or make things that you can use for the rest of your life, that you can hand down to your kids to use. If you can't make something permanent, make it out of wood or some other biodegradable material. That's actually doing something about it.

Edited by Roopey, 01 October 2011 - 07:35 AM.

[OPP]

You should see India.

I remember travelling on a bus in India up in the mountins watching the passengers throw their rubbish out the windows. i couldn't believe they would litter like that in such a beautiful place.

Every time I see someone throw rubbish out of their car I tell myself i should go and say something to them. Haven't gotten up the courage yet.

Edited by OPP, 01 October 2011 - 01:07 PM.

[gerbil]

I agree. I'm so sick of people getting on their high-horse, "Stop fucking littering, I hate you, don't be a tosser!" Don't you people realize that whether you throw something in the bin or throw it on the street, you are still littering? Just because it's all hidden out of sight and out of mind, doesn't mean that it's not there anymore! Get over yourself. If you don't like trash, don't use disposable items, go out and buy or make things that you can use for the rest of your life, that you can hand down to your kids to use. If you can't make something permanent, make it out of wood or some other biodegradable material. That's actually doing something about it.

Don't even know where to begin on this one, taking all my strength to be civil. Our society is incredibly destructive and wasteful, pollutes on all levels, i don't think anyone conscious really debates that, though that doesn't make it right to throw litter on the street, maybe you don't understand stormwater and our river systems and the impact it has on the animals and plant life living there and the terrestrial organisms that then use river systems, not saying land based fills are good, but they are different issues altogether.
I can guess stereotypes of peoples that you are possibly referring to, if they piss you off that's fine, but your context is restricted yet your statement covers people outside of those. Incredibly ignorant statement imo.

[Frank leDank]

gerbil i know you work in waterway management and stuff but im sure you can glean what roopey is getting at- if everything was biodegradable or more than single use (not disposable) then the waste wouldnt be entering the waterway OR the landfill. so the core issue to both problems is our throwaway society, and that is what s/he is attacking. s/he isn't saying it's okay to litter because landfill is still bad.

it's just hypocritical to get super pissed off about rubbish being on the nice clean streets of toorak or whatever whilst it's fine to pollute somewhere else.

[Roopey]

Don't even know where to begin on this one, taking all my strength to be civil. Our society is incredibly destructive and wasteful, pollutes on all levels, i don't think anyone conscious really debates that, though that doesn't make it right to throw litter on the street, maybe you don't understand stormwater and our river systems and the impact it has on the animals and plant life living there and the terrestrial organisms that then use river systems, not saying land based fills are good, but they are different issues altogether.
I can guess stereotypes of peoples that you are possibly referring to, if they piss you off that's fine, but your context is restricted yet your statement covers people outside of those. Incredibly ignorant statement imo.

Maybe you don't understand that the rubbish in the tip still gets into the river systems due to our inability to properly maintain anything. Maybe you don't understand the impact that the clearing of kilometers upon kilometers of land for the sole purpose of piling up rubbish greatly affects the animals and wildlife growing in those areas. I'm not saying that it's OK to throw rubbish on the street, just that doing so is essentially no different than throwing it in the bin, and the real crux of the matter is our wasteful nature in general, not where we throw our trash...

Edited by Roopey, 01 October 2011 - 03:25 PM.

[gerbil]

i'm well aware that both are forms of littering, and fully agree that we should be moving towards more productive means of resource utilisation, packaging, disposal etc, though i still see a distinction between putting something on the street and something in the bin.
Tip waste gets buried, forms mass nutrient load, leaches, is burnt, blows away, gets spread from trucks in botched pickups and transport, makes its way into rivers, gets carried by animals for habitat (nesting materials), destruction of habitat for tip land as roopey stated etc., our recycling and waste management is appalling, it's something to improve on, that's not the issue i'm taking up, it is not fine to pollute anywhere, though if it has to be a choice whilst living in a system which we currently are, dealing with the waste that is actually here, a managed approach has the ability to minimise impacts.
Rubbish on the street is essentially destined for the waterways, bin rubbish may make its way there but is not as a given as via stormwater. It's not a question of whether we should be aiming for better systems, of course we should.
Littering on the street and bin rubbish are distinctly different things with their own issues on both sides, yes they are both littering, i can't see why people should be seen as a hypocrite to abuse someone for throwing rubbish on the street, i don't see it as hypocritical because we have the ability to manage landfill, whether or not the competency is being reached is another issue and of course needs constant regulation and improvement.
Our inability to properly maintain something has the potential to improve and be maintained in a better way, a flow of rubbish out of our control does not, we could redesign our stormwater, but we will still have tips, unless all of our rubbish is thrown into stormwater. If people stop putting rubbish into the streets deliberately, we can focus on the one sector instead of having to get into economics and feasibility of another sector of stormwater filtering / reconstruction.

I can understand parts of roopeys initial post, i took it in context of say mindless folks who get on the environmental bandwagon whilst driving 2 4wd, having pools tennis courts 5 bathrooms and multiple mercedes, or simply people who want change but don't act themselves, which i tried to partially explain in the last sentence of my first post, a stereotype context, though i still think it's flawed logic when applied to broader society.

It's obvious we all have essentially the same ideals and want the same direction to head in. Anyway i probably shouldn't have posted in the first place, may have misinterpreted a meaning, though linguistics can head many directions from a single statement and the internet is hard to interpret, that's the last i'll say on this matter, not saying i'm right, though i still feel i have a valid point, if i'm wrong then so be it and i'm happy with that too, just have better things to do. See ya.

[ThunderIdeal]

initially i thought roopey, while pointing out we should produce less trash in the first place, was saying that littering is okay. the post was instantly emotional and made me emotional but it's a good post looking back over it, i think.

plastic is what worries me. if you litter in a city, quite a lot of it will be picked up by landowners, greenies and the council (although it is disgusting to take the attitude that council gardens are as good as bins since somebody will eventually pick up your trash). something that frustrates me is certain plastic products, like fast food cup lids and some grocery bags, break down so quickly that by the time somebody goes to pick it up, they can't.

plastic sucks. i am reasonably sure trying to confine plastic to few holes in the ground will work out much better at least for a little while.

[qualia]

heres a doco i was on sbs a while ago about life in lagos, or more importantly, how people are adapting to extreme urban environment. a great example of entrepreneurship born from necessity, maybe if people in the developed world had to survive like this then they would see opportunity rather than waste.

[MagicalMedic]

If you guys see someone litter do you call them out? If you do they might be embarrassed, though they might just be defensive and tell you to fuck off they might be less inclined to do it in future. Alternatively, if you're a bigger / more aggressive type, you could grab their rubbish, chase them down and force it into their mouth. Be sure to move on quickly after this though it's almost definitely assault (justified)

[eatfoo]

Nice vid, thanks for sharing