There is a page on the Friends of Abingdon web site for the AbiBinit! Litter Picking Initiative. They will help organise group litter picks, and have one on Saturday 25th August. The meeting point is at Reynolds Way at 10am.
Here in the town centre you are normally never further than thirty paces from the nearest litter bin. But there are still some people who do not find them, particularly when it comes to coffee containers and styrofoam food containers.
Not all litter bins have the word LITTER on them. Some of them have a picture of a person dropping litter into a bin.
Others have no LITTER word or picture. (Extra points for spying one of these.)
Thank you for letting us know when the next litter pick is. The area around Reynolds Way is disgusting. The litter bins often overflow and rubbish gets strewn all over the place. It seems to be acceptable for some. We often comment about people who do not clear rubbish up from their gardens in this part of South Abingdon. They are quite happy for rubbish to accumulate in their gardens. In the 70’s even on our council estate tenants would clean up their gardens and the road outside their properties. Attitutes have changed and people seem not to care any more.
Many people have low standards and don’t seem to care about the litter around them, this low standard is then passed onto their offspring
From my experience of walking my dog in Albert Park for many years, it matters not how many litter bins you have – some morons will actually sit on a bench next to one and still leave a pile of rubbish on the grass.
One factor that did not help was the decision during the IRA bombing campaign to remove litter bins from public places (particularly railway stations) since these were a favourite place to drop off explosive devices.
We were told to drop our litter on the floor and the railway staff would keep the concourse and other public areas clear. Once you have told people that it is okay to drop litter, you have lost the battle.
This does not mean that littering is acceptable, but it does explain in part how we have become the rubbishy untidy people we are. Everyone on this blog may take their litter home or put it in the bin, but if the bins aren’t emptied….
Further, when I was at school the headmaster was adamant that “gentlemen” didn’t eat in the street. We may have been South London boys (many from quite poor backgrounds), but we were expected to have high standards in public. We might live in a tip, but we were not expected to force others to.
Well (as Janet remarks), time and attitudes have changed. And winding the clock back is going to be a very long-time project – there is no political or civic will for it.
Daniel, do tell me about the flowers again 😉
We were told that the huge amount of litter on the verges of the A34, among other roads, was because lorries going to the recycling centres had no covers and their contents were simply being blown everywhere. I find this hard to believe; why are there no tarpaulin or mesh load covers if this is so ? Not cripplingly expensive, effective and easy to secure.
The real explanation is surely because drivers are throwing the stuff out of their vehicules.
ppjs; I think that you will agree…that despite all the issues that Abingdon has – and has had for the 15 years that I have been here – the flowers, especially in the last photo, do look lovely.
So, why worry.
Although I do think that the Council could save money if we all looked after the flowers ourselves.
Out of interest…why are those flowers watered daily with prime drinking water, rather than river water? It seems bizarre…
Here in the town centre you are normally never further than thirty paces from the nearest McDonalds litter.
Don’t you have to pay for a licence to extract water from the river ? Since the council are paying for their drinking water anyway this method might work out cheaper.
Every penny saved is another petunia…..
I started AbiBinIt! to try and get some more litter picking going in Abingdon. I know that there are lots of people who clear up their own areas regularly, but l thought a more joined up approach might help especially during the big Spring Clean in March. Clearly enforcement is not working and l’m not sure it’s the answer anyway. Education is the key and should start from the year dot. In addition to people littering other causes include overflowing bins and the waste collections themselves, the mowing through of litter so that one piece becomes half a dozen! I could go on…
Unfortunately if you’re not a “disciplined” person then you need to be disciplined, however since there is a distinct lack of disciplineairinisms (police) then this situation can only get worse, I hear that last week in the ever popular Abbey Meadow a mum with Children had beer cans thrown at her and another had her young children threatened, and this at 3 in the afternoon!
I’ve just walked across the market place at 8 pm and it is quite horrible, drunken women screaming and drunken men swearing and shouting being very intimidating, this behaviour ultimately leads to no go areas!
Chris, you are likely right.
However, the glaring absurdity of using prime drinking water – and the financial and environmental costs associated with making it so – to water some flowers; whilst standing next to the river is, to me, quite pertinent.
The phrase “joined up thinking” has never been more apt, with this being just one of many illustrations showing how very far removed we have become, as a society, from such thinking.
…next thing you know we’ll be asked to use drinking water to rinse out our recycling!
That really WOULD be absurd!
A link to AbiBinit! is now on here.
Nearly as daft as using drinking water to flush the loo !
Thankfully, Spike, what with all the furore about ‘the environment’ a couple years ago I have every confidence that all our thousands and thousands of new build homes all have grey water harvesting, solar panels, ground source heat pumps; to overcome that absurdity!
There’s that “joined up thinking” for you