Why are the British a Race of Litter Louts

It’s not a new problem

The above photo was taken in Britain, as evidenced by the Keep Britain Tidy logo on the rubbish bin.

Where else? We are a nation of litter louts.

A lifetime ago, back in 1954, the Women’s Institute (a grassroots women’s organization that also campaigns on social issues) passed a resolution to keep Britain tidy. The slogan was later taken up by the local government and various other organizations.

Did it work? Judge for yourself. Walk around London (or any other big city) and the streets are strewn with sweet wrappers, empty drinks cans and — the latest plague — disposable vapes. The culprits are not always the young people who never stop eating but never sit down to eat. They can equally well be the otherwise respectable, law-abiding family who empty the rubbish out of their own nice car onto the car park before driving away, regardless of whether that car park serves a supermarket, a hospital, or a country park.

They can be affluent ticket-holders at an open-air music festival. According to the New Musical Express:

UK festivals produce a whopping 23,500 tonnes of rubbish every year, with two-thirds of that being sent off to the landfill. (1)

The very people who preach love and harmony, and who march to protest against the use of polluting fossil fuels; the very people who eat vegan food, preferably organic, in order to save the planet. However, at a personal level, many of them depart a festival leaving a field heaped with discarded tents, disposable barbecues, empty glass bottles, food packaging, and even clothes. Where is their self-respect, let alone respect for others? Do they imagine the world they live in has an army of paid litter-pickers on permanent stand-by to clean up after their frolics?

I am fortunate to live in a small town where a lot of people care. We have volunteer gardeners who plant and weed public flowerbeds. We also have dedicated volunteer litter pickers who patrol the beach and roadsides. Even so, their heroic efforts cannot keep pace with the tide of litter left by our visitors.

I suppose we should count ourselves lucky not to suffer from fly-tipping. This quaint British expression means dumping a load of rubbish in a lonely, unauthorized spot, like the roadside, a farmer’s field, or someone’s neglected garden. Our local news channel often shows distressing images of narrow alleyways in towns choked with rubbish. Let one person leave a mattress or a defunct television in an alleyway at the dead of night, and fifty others hasten to do the same. (The fact that local councils charge exorbitant fees to accept big items like old furniture at the local dump does not help).

It need not be like this. The northern part of Italy, the country where cocking a snook at authority is a national sport, is notably litter-free. Calgary in Canada, the city-state of Singapore, and Kigali in Rwanda (2) have all been lauded for their different approaches to tackling the litter problem.

So why do the generally law-abiding Brits not care? Some people blame the effect of the Covid pandemic. Some people talk about litter being a symbol of a country in decline. Yet, back in 1954, optimism was in the air. The country was rebuilding a land shattered by war and looked forward to a better future.

The answer remains a mystery.

(1) https://www.nme.com/features/festivals-abandoned-tents-waste-reduction-2382025

(2) https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/15/cleanest-city-world-calgary-singapore