High-end litter.
Not far from our house there's a stream bed that cuts a pretty deep ravine on its way down to the river. I've gone into the woods to have a look and noticed that people have dumped stuff there. There's even an old appliance, like a washing machine, lying out there. I've never understood why someone would dump things there, when there's a perfectly good (and free) official dump just across the river. And they take everything. I mean, if you can drive your junk to a ravine in a vineyard, why not just drive it to the dump?
Well there may be a reason for that label but the rest makes me crazy.
ReplyDeleteGood question... why? Maybe they don't realize that the dump is free?
ReplyDeletemitch, it used to make me crazy when my father tossed his cigarette buts out of the car window. "They'll just dissipate and go away," he'd say. Yeah, right.
ReplyDeletejudy, they're all free, so I don't think it's that. It's just the way some people are, I guess.
because people are lazy slugs.
ReplyDeleteLike you I find it weird that people would drive out into the countryside to dump their stuff rather than take it to the tip.
ReplyDeleteThe problem has got much worse in the UK since local council started charging for disposing of large items. "Fly tipping" as we call it, has increased alarmingly and it's both annoying and heartbreaking to find a pile of junk, even a load of builder's waste (showing that it's people in business, avoiding the charges), in an otherwise beautiful spot. Often in an area that has been purposely created and maintained by the councils for local people to enjoy.
Our plumber last year told us of a mate of his who offered to dispose of a client's fridge/freezer for £30 by fly tipping it. The irony is that the council will collect it for £10!
The worst thing is the bottles of urine that are chucked out of car or van windows, and just lie there, everywhere, for months and months. Disgusting! Litter is a major problem in the UK.
I wonder if it's similar to the problem in this country that the municipal waste stations tend to charge "trade waste" rates for people who dispose of quantities of stuff that appear to be by-products of their business - as it might be, builders, kitchen fitters and so on: and also people who take cash in hand for disposing of other people's waste but then don't want to pay the trade rate at the tip. Sometimes, the authorities make a rough judgement that if you turn up with waste in a van, rather than a car, it's trade waste (paid) rather than domestic (I fell foul of that once). So those people often do find some seemingly unwatched spot in the country for a bit of "fly-tipping".
ReplyDelete