Plague of Litter (what can we do about it?)

[Habitualbridesmaid]

Has anyone walked down their own street and taken time to count the number of items of plastic which are in the street? Do we know where they end up if not in a bin? Have you counted the straw wrappers, straws and plastic bottles around the park at Dulwich Park, Goose Green and Peckham Rye?

We have all seen the plastic pollution images in the Dominican Republic, of rivers in India and Indonesia, blocked by plastic. These problems are our problems and will be the legacy we leave behind for our children to inherit.

Practically, what can we do?

Twitter

@skyoceanrescue #passonplastic

@plasticplanet

@takeonewithyou1

Instagram

@plasticfreeeastdulwich

The people who will change this is us, alone we cant make a dent, together we can.

If you feel like me and dont know where to start, get in touch and lets make a start and a change in our community where our kids live.

Russell

[Robert Poste's Child]

We can pick them up and put them in a bin! I often clean up my section of my road and generally when I'm out and about. If say 5% of people did that, wouldn't it be great?

[rendelharris]

Robert Poste's Child Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> We can pick them up and put them in a bin! I often

> clean up my section of my road and generally when

> I'm out and about. If say 5% of people did that,

> wouldn't it be great?

Bang on RPC - early morning walk to Sainsbury's to get the paper Saturday picked up nineteen bits of street litter and binned them in half a mile. And if you're big enough and ugly enough (I am, I know that isn't the case for lots of people) to challenge people who drop litter, ask them not to, actually I've found that 90% of people challenged will pick up. The other 10%...well I'm quite a swift runner...

[Robert Poste's Child]

Exactly. Not sure if it's being the change you want to see in the world or just being middle aged, but I've been known to spend half an hour walking up one side of my road and down the other with a plastic bag and a pair of marigolds, making everything nice again.

Once or twice a week I also sweep the common parts of the flats I live in; in ten years I've never seen anyone else do it. Then there's my weekly bin tidying and picking up of abandoned dog mess.

All completely selfish, of course, as it keeps things looking nice and stops dirt and smells that might make it a less pleasant place for me to live.

[rendelharris]

The legendary David Sedaris... https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/david-sedaris-litter-picker-rubbish-waste-vehicle-pig-pen-west-sussex

[Habitualbridesmaid]

It's all very well us doing it in little bits and bobs. I spend similar times picking up plastic when walking the dog. What are your thoughts on more concerted action. It needs concerted action, a sea change in attitude, a different approach, not sure how, I have a few ideas but we have to do something. Picking up litter is not enough any more.

Take bio-degradable plastic, it's not bio-degradeable and it's not compostable. It's about us changing attitudes of single use plastic. There has to be ways we start to go about that. We have to create a ripple that people will take notice of and change.

Ideas please

[Robert Poste's Child]

Try Google. I'm sure there are plenty of initiatives and campaigns out there you could join.

[TheCat]

I despair. People don't want to pick up their own dog's shit off the street, what's gonna make them care about their sandwich wrapper?

[Habitualbridesmaid]

Despair won't bring forward any change if not acted on positively. I've a few ideas and a few people who might be able to help. Stopping plastic at source is one idea, providing products in alternative packaging another, campaigning with local councillors, raising awareness through here, twitter, instagram as we are doing here, talking about it, opening discussions are all steps in right direction @Robert Postes Child. To sit in despair with head in hands is no longer a viable option.

Something has to be done and the rubbish piles of plastic have to be made smaller.

[plasticfreeED]

Hi guys, totally agree with the sentiment here, it's a huge problem, not only for the simple cleanliness of our community but the broader environment too.

It can be overwhelming but we can't let that discourage us. In reality individual action is the only thing we can truly control. This can hopefully inspire community action and wider action too though.

I have volunteered to be the community leader for East Dulwich for the national Plastic Free Communities campaign being run by the charity Surfers Against Sewage. It provides a framework and toolkit for local communities to take steps to tackle the problem of plastic pollution. There are now almost 400 communities in the UK working on this programme so it can inspire and affect change.

You can find out more about it here: https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-free-communities/

We are running our second street clean, followed by a plastic free picnic on Peckham Rye this coming Sunday so if you'd like to take action then please do come along and join us. We are meeting at Rye Books on North Cross Road at 11am, Sunday 19th August. We will spend a few hours cleaning the streets (bags, gloves and litter pickers provided) and then we will be heading to the Rye for a plastic free picnic if you can join.

Would be great to see you there. If you'd like to do more you can also email me on [email protected] and i can let you know more about the campaign and the objectives we are working towards to make East Dulwich a Plastic Free Community.

Cheers,

Ric

[Habitualbridesmaid]

Will try to be there if we are not away, but I suspect we will be in Leicestershire

[FightingFit]

Habitualbridesmaid Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Will try to be there if we are not away, but I

> suspect we will be in Leicestershire

You could pick up some litter there

[PatriciaMurgatroyd]

It's been getting worse and worse for years now. Had a potter about the front garden at the weekend and practically filled a carrier bag with the crisp packets and wrappers the wind had blown under my shrubbery over a few weeks..

How hard is it to put it in a bin

[uncleglen]

I worked in a Lewisham school some years ago and had to constantly challenge students to use bins. When asked what their excuse was for throwing litter on the floor (both inside and outside the buildings) was that 'it creates jobs for the cleaners'.....

[Penguin68]

Thanks to the IRA many litter bins were removed and have never been replaced (there always used to be a small bin for tickets at bus stops, for instance). Although there are litter bins around, you have to be local, in residential streets, to know where they are. Habituating individuals to throw litter in bins is less easy when they are not (much) in evidence. So people have become used to using the street as a large public bin, particularly if it isn't a street near where they live. And we live in an age of fast take-away food and drink when you will tend to have far more litter about you than in the past, when there were more bins available anyway.

Until schools, and parents, start to make more of a fuss about it, then we will never train people not to be litterers. There are already a couple of generations mainly lost to the cause of non-littering. And we will not convince people to carry litter about with them until they can find the occasional bin.

[JohnL]

uncleglen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I worked in a Lewisham school some years ago and

> had to constantly challenge students to use bins.

> When asked what their excuse was for throwing

> litter on the floor (both inside and outside the

> buildings) was that 'it creates jobs for the

> cleaners'.....

That's just students trying to be clever. If cleaners aren't picking up litter they can actually clean surfaces and toilets etc. Of course more cleaners could be employed but that requires more money.

[yeknomyeknom]

Definitely complain about it, it?s terrible. But make sure you also pick it up when you see it. We are at the new Peckham Rye playground most days and my son and I pick up a tonne of rubbish before we start playing. Tellingly it?s mostly haribo packets and McDonald?s wrappers we pick up. Always one empty bottle of Budweiser too.

[Zak]

I understand that Plastic Free Dulwich are organising another street clean at 11.30am on 11th November - meet-up at Rye Books on Northcross Road, in order to take part.

You can find out more about the Dulwich Plastic Free Initiative eight posts above, from the guy behind it - Ric Baldock. [email protected]

[plasticfreeED]

Thanks Zak, that's right. We're doing our next clean on 11th November, meeting at Rye Books at 11.30am.

We're not going to solve the problem overnight but the more people get behind the movement, the more awareness is raised and hopefully the more people actually take action in their daily lives.

Small steps but individual action has to be where it starts (but i'm working with local schools, community groups, government and business too so it's a multi-pronged approach!).

[JohnL]

LOL this morning on Sky - "Don't pick up anything strange from the floor"