A rant: sick to death of dog poo bags and coffee cups

MartinYorkshire

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Is anyone else absolutely fed up with seeing their trails strewn with all manner of trash, particularly dog shit bags and empty coffee cups?

Ever since all this coronavirus hysteria started and people started getting paid to stay at home and do nothing, theres been a huge influx of what seems like people who've never been outdoors in their lives, turning up at my local trails a mixture of newly purchased, ill trained and out of control puppies - off lead of course, takeaway coffee's which get dumped on the trail and brand new cheap shiny ebikes which they have no idea how to ride.

I was out tonight for a brief walk and in 5km covered, counted no less than 50 coffee cups from various outlets, the nearest of which is a good 8km drive away. On top of that, there were literally countless dog poo bags all over the place, hanging in trees, in hedges, on the path. Some idiot came around on an electric unicycle doing about 25mph on a blind corner. I'm not quite sure what to say about that, words fail me. The highlight of the walk was a fully soiled disposable nappy, which was positioned next to a bench at a "scenic" viewing area. Given the surrounding dog poo bags, perhaps it did contribute to the ambience of the area somewhat.

Have human beings always been this stupid and irresponsible, or does coronavirus have symptoms akin to a frontal lobe lobotomy which have simply gone unreported?

If I ever see anyone actually throw a fully soiled nappy on the floor like that, I'm going to make them wear it like a face hugger from Alien.

Rant over but I cannot imagine I'm the only one who's extremely annoyed by the behaviour of these people and I don't think its a minority of them either! Utter human trash.
 
Yeah the dog shit bags hanging from trees thing drives me mental. It would be better to just let the dogs shit on the trails - at least then it would biodegrade. What do they think is going to happen to them I wonder?
 
Not seen any items like that on our trails . Mostly water bottles and energy bar wrappers. Somebody will have found my bum bag with all my ride bits an bobs in it. I did find a Gillette lady razor
 
People have always been like that i guess, we regularly pick rubbish up from all sorts of out of the way places. Hopefully you picked all the cups up, a lot of peoples mentality is if they see others have littered they feel less guilty doing it themselves, while the opposite applies to seeing someone picking it up, they tend to feel guilty not doing it themselves.
 
Dog poo bags hanging from trees, hedges, fences etc is just weird. I assume that the people who do this pick up the dog poo just in case anyone was watching when their dog did it, but can't be bothered to take it home or carry it to a bin. So they carry on walking, wait until there's no one else in sight, and then sling it. It's like they care enough to want to avoid the possibility of prosecution for dog fouling, but not enough to dispose of it properly.

With respect to the littering, some people just have no sense of civic pride, so when they venture into the countryside they do exactly what they do in the streets where they live. I have had neighbours like that in the past. I assume that they previously lived in areas where large amounts of litter was the norm. They just don't seem to realise that they are responsible for turning the area into a slum. Maybe there should be a £10 deposit on all fast food/drink packaging to discourage littering? Or perhaps copy the Singapore strategy, which has punitive fines for littering, increasing from $2000 for the first offence, to $4000 and $10000 for second and third offences? For reference, 10000 Singapore dollars is currently worth about 5400 GB pounds.
 
The dog poo bag thing drives us crazy when we are on the South Downs and in Thetford. I agree that if one person leaves a bag in an inappropriate place then people suddenly feel sanctioned to pile them up there. Absolutely stupid, but apparently hardwired into human behaviour. There are existing by-laws which means a fine of up to 1000 gbp in most places, but seldom enforced. I passed a couple in Thetford who were watching their dog defecate from a distance and clearly not going to clean up. I stopped and watched the dog. They stared. I stared. They dithered. I stared. They muttered. I stared. They reluctantly walked back and picked up the mess. I rode on. Ridiculous.You are right to rant. It’s just dreadful.
 
Well as an update to all this, tonight I was out with my son and we'd stopped for a water break. A woman walks past with two dogs, a lab and some other smaller breed. 30 yards past us the lab does its business on the path. She begins to walk off only to turn back briefly and see me staring at her.

Amazingly, she then walks over and asks if I have any dog poo bags.....?! Yes you imbecile, my bike uses bio fuel so often takes a dump on the trail....

I know to a certainty, if she hadn't been spotted, she'd have left it in the middle of the path for some kid to ride through. She eventually flicked it off into the grass with a stick, but people still walk there.

Once saw a video of a man forcing someone to pick it up with their bare hands under similar circumstances.....
 
The dog poo bag thing drives us crazy when we are on the South Downs and in Thetford. I agree that if one person leaves a bag in an inappropriate place then people suddenly feel sanctioned to pile them up there. Absolutely stupid, but apparently hardwired into human behaviour. There are existing by-laws which means a fine of up to 1000 gbp in most places, but seldom enforced. I passed a couple in Thetford who were watching their dog defecate from a distance and clearly not going to clean up. I stopped and watched the dog. They stared. I stared. They dithered. I stared. They muttered. I stared. They reluctantly walked back and picked up the mess. I rode on. Ridiculous.You are right to rant. It’s just dreadful.

I should not be in any way amused by this, but I couldn't help remember that Thetford is the market leading cassette toilet maker for caravans. Theres a joke in there somewhere.
 
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