Litter

Travelling to bigtown by luxury, high speed rail, I noticed as we trundled along the vast amounts of rubbish on the trackside. Most of this comes from the people living alongside chucking their rubbish over the fence rather than putting it out for the binmen. Quite why these folks feel the need to do this when there is an efficient rubbish collection available I do not understand. There again we are not just talking about normal waste, plastic bags and bottles and the like, but large items such as bedsprings or old tables, things that cost money to have the council collect. Near here they just dump them on the street corner often enough anyway, but huge amounts of junk are flung onto the railway embankment and lie there for months. The bridges over the railway are similarly strewn with litter, newspapers, take away cartons and chip wrappers and so on, jettisoned by those unable to consider taking their litter home with them. Now we have all done it in one form or another but there is a limit surely? Why, I ask, are the British such slobs?

It's a feature of life in this country that litter is true be thrown away rather than placed in litter bins or taken home and disposed off. Much better to fling it from car windows, throw it onto the street or railway line, or just drop it carelessly anywhere. The skatepark opposite me is cleaned every morning by a couple of council workmen because the brats who hang about there are too pig ignorant to use the bins provided, except when they are setting them on fire that is!

During the last 30 years the IRA took to placing small bombs in rubbish bins and many were removed because of this. However today bins have reappeared but the filth habit has not changed.This litter habit is not confined to the UK of course. While we hear or clean trains in Germany and no chewing gum found on the streets of Singapore it is clear the majority of the world cares nothing about removing litter, just recently a swathe of the Atlantic fifty miles wide was strewn with vast amounts of plastic litter chucked from boats and blown into the sea from the land. Imaging how much floats around amongst those bottles with telling messages? It's not just the UK that is a mess, the whole planet is.

Have you noticed the increase in spam regarding quick loans and money deals? While most probably come from similar sources there does appear to be an increase of these sharks on the lookout for desperate people to rip off once more. The media, in particular the tabloids, feature many adverts from financial companies willing to give loans to almost anyone. Digging a new hole to get out of the one you are in is not a good idea, or at least that is what I have found! Far too many vulnerable people, not just those who spend thoughtlessly, will be caught out by such sharks. Surely something should be done about such spam, difficult though this is as there are billions of spam daily. There again, as legitimate financial organisations can rip us off so easily, look at credit card APRs for instance, maybe these folks are no worse than the crooked, money grabbing bastards in the banks?