Observations

We recently travelled up the M1/A1 on one stretch of road we saw the overhead signs warning of debris on the road. Shortly after that we saw 4 cars on the hard shoulder all appeared to have damage, a couple of hundred meters on there was another 2 cars on the hard shoulder and about 500m after that another car. All appeared to have some kind of damage from hitting something. We couldn't see anything on the road but the amount of cars involved was troubling.

Litter is the first thing we notice when we get off the ferry from abroad. Be it Dover, Portsmouth or Hull it hits you how dirty our country is. The second thing we notice is the traffic queues 😩

We did notice that a number of bumpers strewn along the roadside and in nearby fields. We said surely the breakdown and recovery should collect that but obviously not. 

I dont think all this "littering" is caused by humonoids, we have a major problem with urban foxes who regularly get into bins that are overflowing and spread the contents far and wide looking for the smallest morsal. We also have some very big sea gulls that carry out a similar exercise wherever there is a bin without a lid or so full the lid will not close.

On our highways i think the local authority are to blame for much of the littering, how many lay byes have you driven past where the bins are overflowing, and why, because in the first place bins provided are totally inadequate for the amount of litter to be expected in a 24hrs period and bins are also probably not emptied regularly enough.

In Spain e.g. they tend to utilise much larger skips with very heavy lids that foxes and the like are unable to get into, also in most urbanizations residents do not have their own bins, they have to use communal skips which are normally conveniently situated and are emptied every night.

They have a similar system in Cyprus except bins are emptied maybe once per week, as a result they are nearly always overflowing with bags of garbbage left by the side of the bins and they are overun by feral cats.

I know the UK is not great for being a clean and pleasant land, but i could take you to areas in Spain where fly tipping is prevalant and some of it very close to so called blue flag beaches.

 Ttda asked " Who in their right mind is going to step out onto a busy motorway"

Definitely off topic but it reminds of my younger days back in 1971. The construction of the M62 was about to start and we were involved in seting out for the bridge that carries the M62 over the M6. This was before the days of electronic distance measuring and we literally had to measure across the M6 with a steel tape. So, on the Sunday morning at 8.00am  we met a policeman on the hard shoulder of the motorway and explained what we had to do. He said "OK, wait here and I'll stop the traffic". Wearing his all black uniform ( well before the days of Hi Viz), he walked onto the quiet motorway and simply stuck his hand up!!! Luckily the first car saw him.

Absolutely true story. 

A danger indeed: one December we were driving up to Melrose.  I can't remember which road it was, but we stopped for lunch in a lay-by, it was somewhere en route to Melrose, in Scotland.

We noticed a cat in the area adjacent to where we were parked, which was full of trees and bushes, and, as you say mickysf, also full of rubbish.  We then noticed the cat walking a bit oddly (it was some distance away, so we couldn't see clearly).  OH decided to have a look and tried to get close to it.  He then saw that it had its head stuck in a tin can, hence our impression that it was walking oddly.  We had a bit of a problem trying to get hold of it, but managed it in the end and then managed to free its head from the can.  It shot off like a bullet (in the opposite direction to where the road was, across some fields) poor thing.  We hope it was ok, but goodness knows how long it had been stuck with its head in that can.  It really made us angry too, mickysf, why do some people just throw rubbish outside? 

On another note: the rubber bands discarded by some post(wo)men on the pavements annoy me too, I pick up any that I see, as I'm concerned hedgehogs can be harmed by those.

Seagulls and foxes don’t produce and then dump/discard the huge amount of litter we now see around us, ‘we’ do. We can’t blame them for the problems we witness or the ease they have to access our discarded foodstuffs. When we do we can often cause problems and life threatening issues for our wildlife. I’m appalled by the dumping of household items and general rubbish in lay-bys and other places. 
No matter where it happens at home or abroad, it shouldn’t, but we should be responsible for our own environment, it’s ours!

There is no doubt that littering is a national disgrace but what is also a disgrace is the number of people who walk past it without picking it up. If every person out on a walk would pick up 6 pieces a day, it would help enormously.

Similarly many people see the results of flytipping and never report it. 

Our council is very good at removing fly tipped items but they can't be expected to do so without a bit of help.

I recall in my childhood my granny sweeping and cleaning the path and street edge in front of her house and also that of her elderly neighbour. Everyone did the same and shops too. People would also pick up wind blown rubbish. 
Don’t start me with chewing gum, cigarette butts, discarded vapes, nitrous oxide cylinders and even worse, it’s everywhere these days! Dreadful state of affairs in filthy Britain!

Unfortunately there will always be people who think their responsibility for keeping things tidy ends at their garden gate! Having said that there are a lot of citizen led litter picking groups and even some individuals that try and keep things tidy. I live on a corner so the boundary of my property is quite long compared to the normal house frontage. I always sweep the gutters to keep them free of leaves (as does my next door neighbour) and I collect leaves that collect under the hedges. OK I am retired and I suppose have plenty of time but there are houses, all privately owned, where the owners make no effort and most of them are a lot younger and probably fitter than me! On the whole I don't think MK is too bad in the litter stakes fortunately.

David 

This is a deep seated problem. Many years ago, 1980s/1990s, when I was teaching, secondary school class. We had been doing an activity that had produced quite a lot of bits of paper, some of which had inevitably ended up on the floor. I asked all the kids to pick up a couple of bits of paper each and put in the bin. This was not a bad class.  Reaction? It's not my paper! Why should I? We have cleaners! Obviously I explained to them that it wasnt the cleaner's job to clear up their mess, but they wernt happy. They did clear it all up!  This attitude comes from parents and it about a selfish, me first attitude.

I tend to agree, despite our protestations our generation have allowed, created this problem. We reap what we have sown and sadly a lot of rubbish is being sown in our environments!