Yesterday Save Loch Lomond sent parkswatch a number of photos of rubbish from the layby off the A82 on the West side of Loch Lomond opposite the Carrick. They also posted a video (see here) on their Facebook page. The comments on that page were right, this is disgusting. But this provides more evidence that condemning the people who do this (see here) will do nothing to address the problems.
Most of the rubbish is flytipping, what government likes to call “dumb dumping”, but included in this are various items of domestic waste. The question that needs to be addressed is why the person who did this decided to drive out to this layby rather than take the rubbish to the Council dump? One possibility is that it was a shorter drive. Council waste disposal and recycling points need to be accessible. But the most likely explanation, now most dumps have re-opened again, after Covid-19 is the charges Councils make for disposal of commercial waste.
While some businesses can afford to pay waste disposal charges , increasingly many can’t. We have created a vicious circle based on the neo-liberal idea that if you put a cost on waste, somehow that will prevent waste being produced. This has resulted in Councils being charged by government for landfill and Councils then trying to pass these costs on to businesses. It hasn’t worked. Instead it has increased the amount of flytipping both in our cities – we have to deal with in the back lanes where I stay in Glasgow – and the countryside.
The rubbish dumped and dropped in this layby illustrates two ends of the waste problem. The first is the “domestic” rubbish the plastic bottles, cans and coffee cups. Much of this probably preceded the flytipping and could have been prevented if Argyll and Bute, the responsible Council, provided recycling bins in its laybys and if government was prepared to introduce measures that tackled the production of disposable items at source. The other is the toilet bowls. Whether these were taken out because they had broken or because someone decided to upgrade their bathroom, we need to find ways to recycle items such as this. The market solution, the idea that by charging for landfill we would kick-start new recycling businesses, simply hasn’t worked.
I was struck by the bin because Argyll and Bute Council don’t provide any in the laybys along the trunk roads in their area. This is a cause of many of the problems in the Loch Lomond and National Park. Has someone decided to make up for the Council’s failures and put a bin here? That seems unlikely, as how would it be emptied? The more likely explanation is that someone has got frustrated by the failure of their local council to empty their bin – a huge problem now where I stay in Glasgow – so has decided that as its no longer much use they might as well dump it too.
There is a limited amount the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority can do about this directly. What is clear though that their message, bin your litter or take it home, can never work when there is a race to the bottom in Scotland in the litter disposal and collection services offered by other public authorities. What the LLTNPA could do is document the issues and then call publicly for solutions based on the evidence, as I have been trying to do on parkswatch and organisations like the Friends of Loch Lomond and Trossachs have been calling for for many years. Those solutions involve litter bins as well as facilities for the disposal of other waste for all those living in the countryside.
The LLTNPA, however, also need to put their own house in order. Following my post on litter last week, I was informed that the LLTNPA has removed the bins from the car park at Balmaha. The predictable consequence has been a spate of rubbish. While the LLTNPA are blaming people for not taking this home, it has been left to local people to pick it up. The LLTNPA need to stop making cuts to their own services and adding to the problems.
The trouble with litter is that once one or two people start a pile, other feel less restrained about adding to it. That’s why it’s so important to provide bins – and regularly empty them. Some outliers may still start their own pile, but everyone else will then use the bin. It’s a form of peer pressure – or “nudging” as the Tories “nudge unit” likes to consider it. Zero Waste Scotland call this “the social norms” of littering.
There’s an interesting analysis of this topic on the ZWS web site – but unfortunately its only observations are around communicating the message better. It acknowledges quite clearly that “material factors” like the “binfrastructure” are key – but the agenda for this report is apparent in their omission from the conclusions. In fact this report seems to have been written with a strong brief to the authors of “keep the outcome cheap to implement, and focussed only on educating the public, chaps”. Shame – as most will just go to the findings and ignore the detail – which is where the truth lies.
https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/sites/default/files/Rapid%20Evidence%20Review%20of%20Littering%20Behaviour%20and%20Anti-Litter%20Policies.pdf
The surprise is not really that this fly tipping has been photographed recently in this place, but that people who are supposed to be managing and overseeing the care for the national park do nothing. It is them that allow this sort of mess to become an unremarkable sight. Debris like this in a public place, sadly, is not so unusual. A short week ago, a farmer in southwest Scotland made Scottish news headlines: he posted a film clip of his farm trailer returning a heap of old tyres he recovered which had been dumped in his field. The front garden of the person the local community knew had fly tipped them was a better place for that heap? .
If no effort is made by park staff to inspect parking places and ensure all litter is removed on a daily basis, whose job is it?
Seeing disgusting mess left for many weeks, why should the next careless person along be so concerned about picking up something they also drop by mistake? Do local council ,and park camping ‘rangers’ in their little patrol vans, all claim to be “working from home” just now? Or are they instructed that rubbish dumped within the park is nothing to do with them, always someone else’s job to clear up? If so, how exactly can anyone mobilize the nebulous ‘cleaner-upper’ to actually perform the task common sense suggests they should have been employed to do? While we all deplore this mess, when little effort is made to clear it this makes it look as if Public bodies responsible for vetting applicants for posts with NGO managerial responsibility, select only those for whom shoulder-shrugging “buck-passing skills” are second nature. It is those highly paid individuals who misdirect and miss-administer today’s Scotland, that are the real culprits.
To stop fly tipping , Change the law. Crush the vehice, old or new,involved in fly tipping. CCTV is the easy way to catch those resposible. Media must show the crushing of the first vehicles crushed. That shuld stop fly tipping.
And how many cameras would be needed to cover Scotland and what would be the cost of this?
Sensible people would only place CCTV at regular fly tipping spots.
ReCCTV Did you watch the morning news (26/10/21) about the success of cameras catching flytippers ?
If anyone ws serious about sstopping litter at the roadside it could probably take only one camerra and a full media coverage of the crushing of the first vehicle seen depositing litter.. I am not yet sure of a way to prevent mentally disadvantaged hillwalkers from littering and for the last 50 years I have done my best to clean up after them. Most of the complainers like to blame the dog walkers but if they tried cleaning the countrside they would discover that for every one dog poo there would be 79 bits of litter discarded by humans. Since my last reply I have moved home. I am now struggling to fill one bag a month instead of 3 a day. this proves to me that a clean area is all about pride in where you live and not about money
To give some organisation the required powers and resources to do this would be wildly disproportionate to the problem and be wide open to abuse. Such things are always subject to mission creep and lack of democratic control. The police who already have the powers regard dealing with littering as beneath their dignity. This is for casual litter.
Deliberate fly tipping is another problem entirely, done with disposable vehicles on false plates driven by people with fungible identities who have no fear of the law or its sanctions. This is a direct result of local authorities making it more and more difficult to access tips – the main priority appears to be preventing the slightest possibility that they might inadvertently accept “trade” waste. Hence severe restrictions on vehicle type, waste type, opening times etc.
My experience of walking paths is the opposite of yours – apart from fly tipping spots there is virtually no litter and a proliferation of dog c*ap bagged and loose.
CCTV will not even begin to solve this issue. For even if the installations were not vandalised in quick time.. operation of CCTV systems require people who sit in comfy chairs to keep “tabs” on every camera,service and maintain them, and then, from their remote air conditioned office, initiate some remedial action after thorough prolonged “legally balanced” investigation.
The only remedy for fly tipping within the “Our” national parks is education so that the public assist by making such behaviour risky. It does not have to be tolerated. Everyone everywhere ( with their mobile camera devices) can be the eyes and ears of the Park. 24/7 Reports of dumping and littering abuse should be immediately followed up by Council and Park Rangers. First they must pay full attention and respect any report made by a member of the public of each incident. Then they must act without delay to ensure removal of what has been dumped, if possible that same day.
It is people – eyes and ears- on the ground within the park that will discourage this abuse of a public place , not those in cosy 9-5 office jobs. Remember, staff in plush office environments cost every bit as much from local council and park budgets. The costs of office employment, heat and light, pension, national insurance, holiday and sick pay and the line management for these posts are every bit as high. To have a highly trained, self confident ,well disciplined and responsible mobile Ranger service out on effective patrols can only enhance the park. A professional Ranger service would be one that assists visitors to understand and appreciate the national asset they are experiencing, not fine and “Police” them. Building this new national park ranger service on the highly effective model seen elsewhere around the world would – at least – be a start.
I hope that you watched the morning news (26/10/21) about CCTV and the success in preventing flytipping. If you still think that it is not feasible please contact the news office..
Why do some people think that CCTV requires someone sitting watching a screen 24/7? Have they not heard of recording?
Kenneth,
Surely every single viewing of boring recordings each day- even speeded up – would require the same number of office staff ? The point made earlier about the Park and Local councils setting up a web alert system so members of the public within the park might easily upload screen shots and videos they shoot on their mobile devices when they spot something bad is the way to go. This has to work far better than fixed contracts to service providers who agree profitable longer term contracts to maintain static.. perhaps vandalised… cameras.
Already the movement of Every vehicle that goes along the A82 is recorded several times by Traffic Scotland highway cameras. Any debris -filled pick up, light truck, trailer or “white van” that returns empty very shortly afterwards past one of these Roadside cameras, could already be identified if the political will existed to modify the system to do so. We know that within LLTNPA such far sighted “will” does not exist. So suggesting a proposal for them that could be made to work is essential.
The late Sister Wendy Breckett of TV fame , was asked during a radio interview , what the word SCUM meant to her. She replied that , to her, it meant a person with no responsibilities. This sounds like the correct word to describe someone who litters Scotland. Yes SCUM ??
Am I right on your definition landowners, however much they dump on their land can never be “scum” because they are responsible for the proper management of that land? I think we need to try and understand why people dump and leave litter instead of trying to apply labels which is not to argue that law enforcement does not have a place.
Sorry. I cannot understand why you are suggesting that some landowners are litterers. Why would a responsible person wish to devalue their own land. It seems that the use of COVERT CCTV in black spots for flytipping is a waste of money. Try telling that to all the district councils using this method with great success. I assume that you do not agree with the late Sister Wendy and her meaning of SCUM.
Have you ever been outside?
I hope that you watched the morning news (26/10/21) about CCTV and the success in preventing flytipping. If you still think that it is not feasible please contact the news office..
Is it not more likely that the brown bin in the photograph was stolen from the house nex dooor?
Ok chief inspector
Some people only look at litter. I pick it up. I mentioned the brown bin may have been stolen as I do not think that even an idiot would dump his own bin.
This is my final comment on this site. I had a stroke in December followed by a cancer operation in January. Fortunately i have made a full recovery.For the last 60 years I have been picking up litter left by SCUM (Sister Wendy) I seldom have a litter problem where I now live and have chosen another area to help out. In 6 days I have filled 30 black bags and picked up 25-30 Nitrous Oxide cylinders which a park ranger explained to were used to give the kids a buzz. Again most passers by say that it should be someone else cleaning up. If all Scottish People felt that way we would have to live in one of the filthiest countries in the Western Wold.
There has long been a prevalent attitude in Scotland that littering and similar behaviour is fine as it creates public sector jobs clearing it up and repairing the damage. If you think about it, you can see why this might have tacit support at the highest levels given their ideological aspirations. As to the negative consequences, there are none for them as their lifestyle doesn’t involve the places where it is allowed to happen.