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I was talking to some friends this week and they were telling me how back home they were annoyed by people dropping litter/garbage on the streets. I couldn't continue the conversation I must leave, but I was interested in the comment.

 

I can't understand somebody would drop litter in public place?

 

Is it big problem?

 

Thank you.

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There's smething in the Oz psyche (or at least in the youth of the Oz) that says "I don't have to live here, so I can trash it as much as I can".

 

I find that really sad, as the problem is exacerbated by the concept that "there is someone whose job it is to pick up my sh!t, so why should I do it?"

 

:rant off: I feel better now!

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I have a theory on this.

99% of people do the right thing and put rubbish in the bin.

1% of people never do the right thing and never put rubbish in the bin.

That 1% can make a hell of a mess over a life time.

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There is another thread somewhere that talks about this.

 

Soubs is right, parts of the UK are terrible. London is a case in point. It really riles me up to see someone drop litter within 2m of a bin. There's an attitude of "Why should I care, no one else does". Ok to be fair there aren't enough bins and on busy days any you find are often overflowing, so there is a bit of the system not doing it's bit too.

 

However compare London with somewhere like Oxford where it is obvious that everyone, including the council, gives a shit. The place always looks spotless.

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Journey Man I think the same goes for Aus as well - some places are a mess, a complete disgrace - and some places are spotless.

 

If I am out with my kids and we have a meal in a food hall/takeaway we never get up and leave the mess on the table. We always put the rubbish in the bins and use our napkins to wipe any spills. However I was horrified when I went to a Macca's with a friend from the Northern Suburbs (her local) for a kids party. When my kids started clearing thier mess she told them to leave it - the staff would do that...it was thier job! I was not suprised when I had to ask her children to put thier mess in the bin when I looked after them for a few days. It starts at home.

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Norwich is my alma mater. It's a beautiful city and I owe my education to there.

 

There's a street market. The encrusted filth running out from the market is inches deep in God knows what. But it's organic.

 

Norwich has a small but very nice pedestrionised city centre. The paving is black and encrusted with chewing gum. When the City can't be bothered to keep itself clean, then there's a question over the heads of both the City councillors, and those who vote for them.

 

I couldn't possibly live in the UK again.

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soubs, that was prob a long time ago. Since then, Coventry has banned drinking in public, ie, wino with drinking a can of beer in the streets, etc.

 

England is a filthy place comparted to Japan, but England is a massively clean place compared to Europe.

 

China and India are just so much much more filthy, it's not on the same scale.

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With respect, thursday (I'm sure you understand). "Sophisticated" shouldn't be compared with emerging nations. Cambridge's suburbs are plastered with dogshit, painted with graffiti, and littered with rubbish.

 

In the meantime, the City is all-out to build traffic calming, and prevent law-abiding motorists from collecting and delivering passengers to the central bus station. "Fiddling while Rome burns", comes to mind.

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Originally Posted By: thursday

England is a filthy place comparted to Japan, but England is a massively clean place compared to Europe.

Completely disagree. Some parts of Europe aren't very clean, but others are massively clean. All the Scandi countries, Germany and Switzerland are a few that spring to mind.

Mind you, it isn't about who's the dirtiest. It's more about what can be done.

I've seen some very successful social engineering done in NZ in regards to vehicle speeds and drunk driving. I think that if the collective councils of London decided to have a concerted long term campaign of being proud of where you live with sub messages of keeping it tidy, etc I think the whole uncaring attitude could be substantially changed over time.

Another example of what can be done is the New York City's fight against vandalism and graffiti where they used the Broken Window Theory to make public transport and public places safer, which in time changed peoples attitudes to what was acceptable in those places.

It just takes someone to get the ball rolling.
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Japan seems pretty clean for howmany people live there however...

My friend Kenji always throws all his garbage out the window at pedestrians. One time I saw him peg this kid in the head with a half full bowl of Yakisoba!! This kid is out of control!!

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Originally Posted By: Motherhucker
Japan seems pretty clean for howmany people live there however...
My friend Kenji always throws all his garbage out the window at pedestrians. One time I saw him peg this kid in the head with a half full bowl of Yakisoba!! This kid is out of control!!


Doesnt seem very nice - very cowardly.
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I think that the Japanese in general are roughy as bad as any other nation when it comes to not putting things in bins and just throwing it on the floor. The difference is that even the cleaners here show some pride in their work and there seem to be a lot more of them, therefore the place gets cleaned up quickly and well.

 

Also kids are made to clean up in their schools themselves at the end of the day, this means that if they create the mess then they have to clean it up meaning more work for themselves, so it is in their best interests to keep it clean.

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Originally Posted By: farquah



Also kids are made to clean up in their schools themselves at the end of the day, this means that if they create the mess then they have to clean it up meaning more work for themselves, so it is in their best interests to keep it clean.


Japan definately gets the gold medal here and it's not hard to see why with this sort of practice.
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Originally Posted By: Motherhucker
Japan seems pretty clean for howmany people live there however...
My friend Kenji always throws all his garbage out the window at pedestrians. One time I saw him peg this kid in the head with a half full bowl of Yakisoba!! This kid is out of control!!


OMG! And you are still friends with this tool?
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Litter all over the place drives me crazy as well, it is just so completely senseless. (The other thing that really annoyed me over summer was the general lack of 'service' and restaurants etc, but thats another story).

 

Actually this is one thing that Liverpool has really been improving on. The centre is pretty clean now and there are lots of international tourists about - cruise liners docked at the front, packed city even mid-week. Liverpool One the big new shopping centre has transformed the area between Albert Docks and the traditional centre as well. It has changed so much in the last 10 years, lots of it for the good. Still a lot of cranes about and building going on, even though we are already in September of the Capital of Culture year.

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I noticed in a public square in Tokyo there was a lady that was wearing a fluorescent bid with a picture of a cigarette butt with a cross through it. Would she be like some kind of butt warden or something?

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Originally Posted By: stemik
Ive also noticed that there a far fewer trash cans in public places in japan....


I've noticed this too Stemik and in fact when I did a bit travelling a couple of years back, I found that the places that have few public bins have less rubbish than those countries that have a lot of public bins (like the UK).

Kids in the UK are terrible for throwing rubbish on the ground, when I worked at a High school in my home town, I was always shouting at the kids to pick up rubbish they had thrown away, their attitude was that the Cleaners were employed to pick up after them!! One even said that if he didn't throw rubbish on the ground then the cleaners would be out of a job!!!

I always worked with the baddass and socially disaffected kids in small groups, they would actually get to do some really cool things like mountain biking, canoeing, skiing, climbing etc etc, they'd make 1 hell of a mess of the bus, but I wouldn't let them leave until all the rubbish was cleared from the mini bus.
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As it was explained to me, the reason is that people are expected to take their rubbish home with them.

 

We noticed it one day when +1 bought what she thought was a sweet roll, only to find that it contained very, very fishy smelling product. She was wanting a sweet bun to go with coffee and what she got was definitely NOT appropriate.

 

Couldn't find a bin, not even in the main shopping area of Sapporo. Ended up going into a shop to find a bin.

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You can always bin stuff at the conbeni. They work on the principle that they sell stuff wrapped, then they have to take the rubbish back.

 

Even on the building site, where you wouldn't necessarily expect World's best practice, the blokes are meticulous about sorting and disposal of rubbish. That includes fag ends, all of which go into the mega- ash tray.

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