9 Replies to “Saturday cartoon by Ralph Underhill”

  1. Spot-on Ralph! There may be environmental issues that are more important in the great scheme of things but the scale and extent of littering and fly-tipping in this country are a telling indicator of just how much many people care about the environment we live in. Not much hope for nature when such attitudes prevail.

  2. Eight toads under a discarded mattress were 80% of our amphibians found on 4 hour survey the other night – still rather it hadn’t have been there though. Must have taken some serious effort to get it that far from civilisation!

  3. The annual Clarendon Marathon – from Salisbury to Winchester or vice versa – attracts a large field of runners that liberally cover the Clarendon Way with litter. A team of pickers follow the stragglers to clean up, but they miss a lot of stuff in the forest. Mostly plastic drinks bottles, pothylene bags and the like, that fall among the Dog’s Mercury and mildewed Wood Melick. But one year, hanging from a hazel – a condom (used). I had to admire the chutzpah, slightly.

  4. Saddest story I read re fly tipping was at a nature reserve where a group of naturalists were watching with delight as an otter cub took to the water, then it encountered a duvet someone had chucked in the marsh, got entangled – by the time a wee boat got out to it, it had drowned. Vile activity.

    1. When council recycling facilities started to charge for small businesses disposing of fridges, mattresses etc. then unscrupulous entrepreneurs were always going to capitalise and look what has happened since. It may well now cost more for local authorities to sort fly tipping than revenue generated from charges and that is if the local tip is actually open for accepting such waste. What penalties if they are caught, negligible and the cost of catching & processing. Political parties and local councillors seeking election are remarkably quiet on the issue in this area.

      What always astonishes me is the distances folk travel to dump a couple of black bags, or a computer monitor – hardly worth the risk to their vehicle down a rutted track?

      Sadly, we are a ‘throw away’ society and one where there is the expectation that someone else will sort out the mess.

      Other cruel packaging is the plastic halters that used to be used on cans of beans or beer, look at seabird colonies to see the impact.

      Sadly the new trend seems to be bags of dog poo adorning hedgerows, or tucked in tree roots or rock crevices.

      Was it in Germany where people removed wasteful packaging from their shopping and left it with the supermarkets, who in turn instructed suppliers to cut back on excessive and unnecessary packaging?

      1. Well said, Mudlark and Les.

        And why can posties not put the rubberbands the PO uses in their bags and not drop them on the ground, endangering hedgehogs?

        Some of us have made repeated attempts to stop this – including complaining to PO Customer services – who say they ask the posties not to do this – and to our posties themselves.

        It gets a bit better, then starts up again.

      2. I totally agree about the dog poo strung up in plastic bags in trees and bushes. It is disgusting. However there does seem to be a solution in the offing. The idea is that you register your dog which then has a dna sample taken. Dog poo in public places can then be analysed and the culprit owners prosecuted. The actual process of registering the dog and taking its DNA seems to be sufficient on its own to stop the problem

  5. We live in the Lake District, which is a magnet for serious cyclists. No problem! But I wish that many didn’t feel that they were doing the Tour – chucking their energy bar/gel packets and plastic drink bottles into the verge! I rarely walk from home without collecting at least a bag full of these items (plus the occasional sandwich box or beer bottle chucked from cars). Who do they think clears it up in these rural areas?

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