Rubbish on the roadside

Allan Marais · Member

Rubbish on the roadside

deverall11 · Guru

Irrelevant. Just because there may not be rubbish bins provided, does not excuse people leaving their rubbish on the ground as they leave. Education is the key here.
Larry

Nelly · Guru

Because of the drought and all the stock that are on the roads, I am really shocked at the amount of rubbish that has shown up because of the short grass - as Larry states - education is the key.

pambaz · Senior Member

It seems to be a growing problem all over Australia. Sydney and the surrounding countryside is turning into a rubbish dump. Motorways and country roads are strewn with rubbish. People don't care and throw rubbish out the windows of their cars and others dump their rubbish in lovely bush land settings.

The worst we ever saw was in WA west of Coolgardie.. For 80 klms or more rubbish was piled up on both sides of the road. Bottles, cans ,tyres, paper ,foam, rubbish bags,toilet paper and more. It was absolutely disgusting and in such a huge area. After driving the full length of the state and thinking it was the cleanest state we had been in this was a big shock.

How hard is it to keep your rubbish in the car until you find a bin.

We have also noted that a lot of truck stops and rest areas don't have bins. We save our rubbish until we find a town and deposit the rubbish in a bin.

People need to grow up, we all know it's wrong to litter.

Pam

Sparkster · Senior Member

I don't think Allan meant 'rubbish' my interpretation was that he meant "Human Waste".

However I agree on both types of waste, surely we can carry our rubbish to the next facility. I don't think rubbish bins are the answer as animals and birds get at them and spread the rubbish around. There is also the associated labour cost to empty and cleanup around the bins.

On a recent trip to the centre we were disapointed in the amount of human waste left behind with the associated tissue.

I was always trained to carry out what you carry in!

Education on both counts gets our vote.

Keith.... smile

kiwijims · Guru

On our recent trip around the North West, we also noticed the rubbish on the road sides, not only human waste but also the number of abandon Vehicles, mostly burnt out and some just broken down then vandalised, sitting on the side of the road. "What a great sight" for the visitor !

We also noticed the over-night stops, most of these had rubbish bins but they were all full to over-flowing, with rubbish blowing all over the place.

Another thing was, the larger Stops where they had installed Solar Powered lights, Not One light was working, all the Batteries had been stolen and the Battery box's had been welded closed, never to work again.

There sure must be some very untidy "Low Life" traveling our Highways.

K.J.

Sparkster · Senior Member

I think Kiwis comments reinforce my point on not having rubbish bins to start with.

You're correct Jim, there's low lifes everywhere.

Keith.... smile

moamajohn · Guru

A month ago 10 of us travelled down the Murray from Echuca ,pulling in and camping on the bank each night.We only ever leave our footprints behind.Well we pulled in to a spot about 5 kays downstream from Wentworth and decided that this was our turn around spot and it was ideal for a few days.It even had 44 gall drums on swivel posts with huge rubbish bags duct taped to the inside of them.We placed all our rubbish in them and put our corona stubbies on the side .[we always bring them in the original cartons cause they have six pack boxes inside them so we just put the empties straight back ] Any way the next day a shire Garbo came and we helped fill up ,he then retaped another bag in the 44 and then gave us all one of the huge 44 bags to carry with us on the return trip. A real nice gesture and a real thoughtfull shire !

chris & terry · Senior Member

"People need to grow up, we all know it's wrong to litter." Yeh pretty well right, & education is hardly the answer. You can't educate dopes. As the saying goes "there are none so blind as those that will not see". How do you teach someone that it is wrong to throw rubbish out the window, leave rubbish at the base of overflowing bins to be scattered in the wind, or to crap by the side of the road & leave unsightly paper to blow about. I think I am stuck with the actions of these dopes & will be left to try to compensate by doing an emu pick when I able to.

terry

Cloak · Guru

We started to clean up a roadside stop near Elmore but it was way too big a job for us.
Looked like someone emptied a full rubbish bin.
We couldn't take any photos there it was a pigsty.
Generally though we don't see much around Victoria that I can recall other than that one.

bluemoon2 · Senior Member

We have been in rest areas with bins and yet still see all sorts of rubbish thrown in bush including toilet paper. We pick up when we can.
Its really selfish of these people.

Gerty Dancer · Guru

Sometimes rubbish around a bin is because the crows have been raiding the bin and spread it everywhere, but not always.

We always carry rubber gloves for cleaning up our campsite. But I've given up cleaning up all over the place after the filthy pigs who leave their sh1t out in the open. The only ones who like it are the flies!

Its enough to drive us into caravan parks more than ever.

dorian · Guru

I was sitting in my car at a shopping centre recently. An elderly couple pulled up alongside. The old man went in to do the shopping while his wife remained in the car. She wound down her window and discarded something that looked like a lolly wrapper. Elsewhere, a young woman pulled up in a late model car, took a final drag of her cigarette, and then ground the butt into the concrete. It seems that anywhere is fine, except the car's own ash tray.

native pepper · Senior Member

dorian wrote:
I was sitting in my car at a shopping centre recently. An elderly couple pulled up alongside. The old man went in to do the shopping while his wife remained in the car. She wound down her window and discarded something that looked like a lolly wrapper. Elsewhere, a young woman pulled up in a late model car, took a final drag of her cigarette, and then ground the butt into the concrete. It seems that anywhere is fine, except the car's own ash tray.

May be wrong, but been told most new vehicles don't have ash trays any more. Maybe those with new vehicles can verify that, they are great for putting small change in. Tobacco drug addicts are probably one of the worst polluters on the planet, they always throw their butts away no matter where they are. You only have to look outside pubs where druggies congregate, there are normally some form of receptacle for the butts, but the container normally has less butts in it than are spread around the place.

In Tas, it's tourists we see every klm on the road dumping their rubbish out of their car windows as they drive done the road. We have community organisations who try to keep the road sides clean, but during our summer, from the Macca's/KFC 75klms from us, there is a stream of their packaging dumped along our biggest tourist road every day and the rubbish bins set up by councils and local communities, are empty.

dorian · Guru

Here's something which appears counterintuitive.

CSIRO study finds some of Australia's remote beaches are most polluted:
www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-11/australia-dirtiest-and-cleanest-beaches/5382134

"CSIRO researchers have spent two years surveying Australia's entire coastline, counting rubbish on sections of sand and sea every 100 kilometres. The survey of more than 175 beaches found the dirtiest beach in Australia was Border Village on the coast between Western Australia and South Australia. This was typical of the study that found remote and hard to reach beaches were among Australia's most grotty. Lead researcher Dr Denise Hardesty says the rubbish did not float in from polluted oceans abroad. By using ocean current data and examining the items, researchers could tell much of the mess fell from the hands of ordinary Australians."

elliemike · Guru

I am surprised that "The Overseas Backpackers and Whizzbang Tourists" haven't been blamed for all this rubbish yet. As in past discussions on here, about littering the highways, byways and rest areas, of Australia. They seem to get the blame. Your ordinary Australian would never leave litter ! would they.

I think this littering problem has always been there. I remember reading a travel book about Australia in 1968. I was at sea then and got the book from the ships library. About an ornithological Oxford University trip to catalogue and survey birds in remoter locations in Australia.

There were comments and even a picture as I remember, in the book about the disapointing ammount of " Litter" ( bottles and broken glass etc.) strewn alongside miles of some roads they encountered.

The picture (coloured) was of a major unsealed road somewhere ! with the edges of the road glistening into the distance with discarded bottles and broken glass.

Like all other users of the Australian Outdoors, some fishermen like campers and travellers spoil it for the many who do the right thing.

dorian · Guru

Speaking of tourists ...

RSL chiefs dismayed by Gallipoli rubbish:

www.theage.com.au/news/National/RSL-chiefs-dismayed-by-Gallipoli-rubbish/2005/04/26/1114462039436.html

elliemike · Guru

dorian wrote:
Speaking of tourists ...

RSL chiefs dismayed by Gallipoli rubbish:

www.theage.com.au/news/National/RSL-chiefs-dismayed-by-Gallipoli-rubbish/2005/04/26/1114462039436.html

Interesting article Dorian.

Deetric · Veteran Member

Just a small input on human waste litter. Why o why cannot you dig a hole and bury it.

take a small spade. It ain't hard to do.

I am getting to the stage I am ashamed of being a human being.

People need to realise that this country is ALL their backyard. Not a dumping ground.

or do they do that at home too?

ok it's a bit of a rant. But it get up my goat.

hako · Guru

dorian wrote:
Speaking of tourists ...

RSL chiefs dismayed by Gallipoli rubbish:

www.theage.com.au/news/National/RSL-chiefs-dismayed-by-Gallipoli-rubbish/2005/04/26/1114462039436.html

That article is 9 years old!

SnowT · Guru

IF you are really worried about what you see People do with their rubbish then just don't carp on about it do something..

In Victoria..

EPA

Go to the above link..

get a Log in for the website and Report them..

- if you have a Camera on your phone take a snap of the car number plate and send that along..

It does work..

-- Mum does it all the time and she has gotten a thank you from the EPA for her service's..

Each state has the same thing in place..

If you really have a grip about People dumping Rubbish REPORT them....

Especially if its a Cigarette Butt.. figure from the CFA and Police have concluded that 70% of All fire are started from cigarette butt's thrown out of the windows of cars..

So if you have a problem with people dumping rubbish and you want to do something other than just talk about it, take down the information and REPORT them to the EPA in the Correct STATE..

Juergen

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.