I'm always appalled when i visit the UK by the huge number of drinks cans thrown willy-nilly around. Outside train stations i notice that any fenced area is like to be piled up with old drinks cans. And i mean piles and piles.
It seems behind every fence practically along streets such cans accumulate.
Though in central London Mayor 'Red' Ken Livingstone seems to have turned the corner on litter and the central city sparkles in the suburbs and other cities the number of drinks cans along streets in such places is appalling.
I've read that the UK has practically the lowest recycling rate in Europe and wonder why the public is so careless.
Solution - a bottle and can deposit - which will reap benefits also for the many street bums you see around who will now retrieve the cans for the deposits...all to:

Keep Britain Tidy!

(Let me say i love London and the UK but just wonder why this problem is allowed to persist - specially when there is no lack of public garbage bins??)

It would make a lot of sense. Some of us try to be good about recycling but there is still a lot of waste.

When I was a kid there was a deposit on the large glass soft-drink bottles but no longer (well, they are plastic now anyway, but they could do the same with other drinks that do still come in glass).

Chewing gum on the pavements is what strikes me when I go back to the UK.

Has no-one thought of insisting on biodegradeable gum?

come to think of it i was also struck by the blackened chewing gum remains that practically paved the Leicester Square/Picaddily area. Don't think much can be done about this and not unique to London.

Please don't tell us this has anything whatsoever to do with

the evil EU people

the fact that Mrs. Junior Ronald Reagan is no longer running things

the people of Britain will never submit to any foreign ideas about recycling

Could it possibly be simply a lack of incentive?

Litter currently has nothing to do with Livingstone, though he'll waffle about it. Collection is the responsibility of the boroughs, over which Livingstone has no authority.

It's no accident that Westminster (Conservative) and The City (non-political which means VERY Conservative) have better records on litter than most other British urban councils, which are almost all Labour (Ken's lot)

Central government invents a million new things councils have to to every year. Councils claim they've got no money (their ability to raise it without government permission is very constrained). Which is where it gets political.

Labour or LibDem councils (ie practically all England's urban councils), pressed for cash, put middle-class fads (like clean streets) at the bottom of their to do lists. Conservative councils tend to be nastier with employees, and The City never has money problems anyway. But Conservative councils will put other things below clean streets.

Bottle deposits won't work. If you're the kind of idle prat who's too lazy to carry the bottle five yards to a bin, you're not going to carry it a mile to the Tesco you bought it from, and it'd be unfair to expect every 200 sq ft urban kiosk to accept the tons of bottles the supermarkets churn out. True, in areas with lots of indigent immigrants, it'd create an industry of scavengers. But before you knew where you were there'd be territory wars between rival factions.

You think I jest? Big Crime has got into recycling already

http://www.letsrecycle.com/materials...jsp?story=6580

Aluminum cans are i think amongst the most valuable things to recycle while things like paper and glass often may require losses actually to process depending on the market.
But drinks cans, assumably aluminum are valuable in recycling also because of the environmental benefit - apparently the energy required to make aluminum is very high and this reduction would be a benefit of aluminum recycling.
So i think some group like the Scouts should go on a national collection campaign to clean the cans out of trains stations, behind fences, etc.
They would make money on the recycling, i think cans actually get about 1 US penny each on the metal market and the Scouts would reap huge national publicity.
Where is Baden Powel when we need him?

On my fall trip to England, my father walked around with an apple core in his hand at the Oxford Train Station for half an hour. There were zero trash cans anywhere at the station (dont' know about restrooms) and he had to wait until on the train to find a trash recepticle. We noticed this at many stations. We were told that it was due to security restrictions in place after the London subway bombings. Maybe not everybody who threw a can on the ground did so because there were no trash cans, I'm sure many did. It's maddening that we're the ones inconvenienced because of the terrorists.

Let's hear it for the Americans!! They have pretty much conquered the litter problem.

Presumably if the UK give the North of Ireland back to the republic (against the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants), then the US will give America back to it's former inhabitants ?
Possibly the native Americans might have something to say about "Centuries of abuse by an occupying power"

And I know this is deliberately provocative, but if only the "Irish problem" was as easy to fix as is believed in some quarters.

has Parliament, in London, which has direct control over Northern Eire i believe, ever allowed a free democratic vote on NI independence - that would be the only way to really know how many folks are in favor of it. I wonder why such a referendum doesn't happen? Or has it?

The French have managed quite well by developing a trash receptacle that is an iron ring holding a clear bag.

Crikey let's not get into Irish political terrorism for god's sake !!

I think the mindset of many British people is dreadful, they have no respect for anything and throw any type of litter straight on the floor. It is rife everywhere.
Solution- Public executions !

;-)

Muck

we do have an appalling record on recycling (sorry to get back on topic). only within the last year do i have recycling pick-up at my home. i've lived in many countries over the years and have always had recycling pick-up at home when living abroad...this goes back at least 10-15 years.

i work in many different businesses in the UK (and all over the world) and many UK big businesses do not even recycle printer/copier paper in their offices. these are generally the big names who you would think would be more progressive. i have very rarely seen cans and bottles recycled in offices.

just a few months ago, i saw one of our big companies make a half hearted attempt at recycling office paper. they set out extra bins with no marking and without giving any explanation to employees. pretty pathetic.

the rest of europe is way ahead in this regard.

There are plenty of trash cans in and around the Maidenhead station--does this mean terrorists aren't interested in us or is it that the UK doesn't care if we get blown up? Maybe it's *that* poem and guilt by association:

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

...It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
---------

FWIW, recycling here isn't as good as it was in Oregon or Germany. But it's better than it was in Brussels, although they're trying harder now.

Steep fines for littering? If there are fines, are they enforced? Seems the UK government love getting tax money & this would be a good revenue producer plus with all the CCTV cameras around there would be proof.

Yes there was a referendum held in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, giving the electorate the choice between staying in the UK or joining with Eire. The result was overwhelmingly to stay in the UK. The IRA didn't like the result and that was when the main terrorist campaign started.

Electorate: 1,030,084
Votes Polled: 604,256
Non-voters: 425,828
Percentage turnout: 58.66%
Invalid (spoilt) votes: 5,973
Total valid vote: 598,283


Option
No. of Votes % Valid Votes % Electorate
Do you want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom? 591,820 98.92%
Do you want Northern Ireland to be joined with the the Republic of Ireland outside the United Kingdom? 6,463 1.08%

Source: Irish Times (1973)





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Havn't seen anybody buying a soda can here for years. As well as empty cans somewhere in the street. Jawohl!
Don't you dare to litter when you come to visit, we'll call the cops, have you locked up and teach you manners.

The show bomber was a Brit. . .

That should be "shoe" bomber.