{"id":28904,"date":"2025-08-05T08:59:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/?p=28904"},"modified":"2025-08-05T08:59:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T08:59:21","slug":"litter-in-scotland-why-are-we-so-rubbish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/litter-in-scotland-why-are-we-so-rubbish\/","title":{"rendered":"Litter in Scotland \u2013 why are we so rubbish?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"174\" src=\"https:\/\/d3teiib5p3f439.cloudfront.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/by-ben.jpg\" alt=\"Ben Dolphin\" class=\"wp-image-19093\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/by-ben.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/by-ben-129x150.jpg 129w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of my guilty pleasures is watching YouTube travel videos, made by overseas visitors to Scotland and the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s interesting to see and hear an unfiltered, instant impression of where you live, partly because you have pride in where you live and you hope folk have a nice time, but also because it\u2019s nice to have positive aspects about your home pointed out to you that you\u2019ve forgotten about, taken for granted, or perhaps not even considered before. In short, as a country, it can make us feel better about ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there I was, watching one such vlog last week, which I\u2019ve been keenly watching as they\u2019ve made their way around the UK &#8211; an American couple, using bikes to cycle from England to Scotland. Last week, as they departed these shores, they uploaded \u2018<em>Q&amp;A after 600 miles and 4 months in the UK<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To the question, \u2018<em>What\u2019s the best thing about the UK?<\/em>\u2019, they said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>It\u2019s a little cheesy, but I think the people. They\u2019re so sweet and kind. People are always asking if we\u2019re okay and asking if we need directions\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<em>Yeah, people here are so nice. Everyone in the UK, from top to bottom, has just been nice. We haven\u2019t run into a single rude person.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But then came the question, <em>\u2018What\u2019s the worst thing about the UK?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I naively assumed they\u2019d say the weather or, given they\u2019ve been cycling on roads most of the time, perhaps potholes. But no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Litter!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You could tell they were utterly baffled by it, given that everything else in their experience had been positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<em>We\u2019ve been in 40 countries and littering is, for some reason, a massive thing in the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>It\u2019s the cities, it\u2019s the countryside, it\u2019s the country roads. There\u2019s just trash everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on. There must be something I guess, culturally, there\u2019s never been a public awareness campaign or something?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How depressing is that? That litter should form part of the lasting impression overseas visitors have of this place. It reminded of this tweet I posted in January 2020, while walking part of the Fife Pilgrim Way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>The only downside of the day was the time spent walking alongside main roads. Not cos they&#8217;re roads but cos of the amount of crap chucked onto verges. It&#8217;s not a problem unique to Fife by any means. Embarrassing, knowing how folk come from around the world to walk our trails.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28905\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a-320x213.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Fife, 2020. A typical roadside scene in the Central Belt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Litter isn\u2019t everywhere in Scotland, not by any stretch of the imagination, and you can quite easily travel around without really noticing. But my general perception is that we have a terrible problem with litter in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t really travel overseas any more, so I have few reference points to compare us against, but I find it hard to believe that other comparable countries are as bad as us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve only been to Norway in recent years and I can\u2019t recall seeing rubbish anywhere. But that\u2019s Norway for goodness sake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I remember sitting in an Edinburgh pub after I\u2019d finished work, with friends who were visiting from Norway. They asked how my day had been and I said it was pretty normal, y\u2019know, litterpicking, and removing dog poo from trees. The usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was met with blank expressions, so I clarified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>Yeah, you know, when people bag the poo and fling it in a tree afterwards?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28906\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b-320x213.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u201cThey\u2019re coming back for it later\u201d. Really? 8ft up a tree?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nope, they had no idea what I was talking about. How nice for them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s not just dog poo of course. A recent Scottish Government review into littering estimated that 250 million visible items are dropped in Scotland every year. And without question, roadsides and verges are where most of it seems to end up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is undoubtedly why the Americans got such a bad impression. When you\u2019re riding a bike on a road, you\u2019ve got a kerbside view of the verge\u2026..and it\u2019s not pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I\u2019m not much of a road cyclist I didn\u2019t have any sense of the scale of the problem until 2013, when I started working in the kind of jobs where I was looking after greenspaces and cycleways etc close to busy main roads. I genuinely couldn\u2019t believe how much rubbish there was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Between April 2024 and March 2025, BEAR Scotland, who look after the country\u2019s trunk roads, collected 57,970kg of litter (in 8,278 bags) from the motorway and dual carriageway verges in southeast Scotland. Where on earth does it all come from?! Do people REALLY chuck it out of cars?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While some of the litter will have blown-in from elsewhere, a Keep Britain Tidy survey in 2012 found that 21% of drivers had seen litter thrown from vehicles. Personally, I\u2019ve only ever seen it happen once, but a similar national survey of over 2000 drivers in 2021 found that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>16% of drivers reported that they had disposed of an item of rubbish from a vehicle window, and 6% reported that they had done so within the last year.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are more than 3 million licensed vehicles in Scotland. Even if only 16% of those vehicles are chucking stuff out their windows, that\u2019s still 480,000 litter dispensers driving along our roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reading the genuine public responses in 2021\u2019s Understanding Vehicle Littering (UVL) survey makes for shocking reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>if I know I&#8217;m getting out the car in five minutes I&#8217;ll just take it with me. But if I know I&#8217;m going to be stuck in the car for another hour or so, I&#8217;ll throw it out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018\u201c<em>I think it\u2019s just because it\u2019s just quickly out of the car, and you know it\u2019s gone and it\u2019s not your problem anymore. I don\u2019t have to go home and think, \u2018I\u2019ve got to get my daughter out the car, I\u2019ve got to get everything out, oh and I\u2019ve got to get the rubbish\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s not just roadsides of course. Litter is conspicuous in all sorts of places. I remember the first \u2018dirty campsite\u2019 I ever saw. It was 2007, and I was a fresh-faced, na\u00efve, volunteer ranger in the Pentland Hills. I was sent on patrol to Bonaly Reservoir, where I found what could only be described as a camper explosion. Socks, shoes, pants, bottles etc, all scattered randomly and widely around a ripped tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s funny. When you go to ranger school they don\u2019t tell you about litterpicking. And yet a disproportionate amount of my ranger career so far has been spent doing exactly that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the early years I tried to make light of it, so that it wouldn\u2019t get me down. If I found an Irn Bru bottle or can (and I did, all the time), I\u2019d post a pic of it online with the caption \u2018how do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish &lt;insert context here&gt;\u2019, with the context changing depending on where the item was found or what it was near. Some of my favourites were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish World Heritage Site?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish 19th Century shooting lodge?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish pet cemetery?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish fairy pool?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How do you tell if it\u2019s a Scottish fly agaric?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But eventually I gave up. Partly because it never seemed to end, but mostly because I eventually ran out of different things\/settings to cite and be creative with. After a few years I\u2019d seen Irn Bru litter everywhere. I\u2019d exhausted all the possible contexts.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"513\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-800x513.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28907\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-800x513.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-320x205.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c-200x128.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">How do you tell it\u2019s a Scottish fly agaric \/ hill \/ stile \/ winter?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it\u2019s not just Irn Bru cans, of course. I\u2019ve seen so much more besides, and listing the weirder discoveries reminds me of some dark version of the conveyor belt at the end of the Generation Game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A gazebo with sleeping bag<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The head of a doll<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A bible and a can of Tennent\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A horde of plastic action figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Soiled nappies stuffed into a car park wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A condom, plastic knife and coffee cup on a mattress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A CUDDLY TOY!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Socks! But only ever single socks. Never a pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And pants. Lots and lots of pants. All over Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that\u2019s before you even got to the tsunami of flytipping. 26,000 tonnes of it per year, (according to ScotGov) most of which felt like it washed up at the greenspaces we managed: sacks of bread rolls; tyres; sofas; washing machines; oil drums; entire kitchens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It would sit there for weeks. Nobody would report it, partly because they probably thought the council already knew about it, and partly because litter on that scale is completely normalised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t know how this all compares to other countries. Are they all just as bad as us? Replies over the years to any of my litter moans online have certainly prompted replies from overseas folk, from Massachusetts to Macedonia, all lamenting the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not that it matters though, really. There\u2019s no need to compare yourself to anywhere else when you can see the problem with your own eyes, and your own eyes tell you it is clearly very bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The thing is, it\u2019s not as though people don\u2019t care, or there aren\u2019t people here taking action. They do. They are. And the evidence of this is everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the seven years I worked in West Lothian, I saw the same elderly lady in Threemiletown on my drive to work, at least once a week, walking the roadside with a full bin bag in one hand, and litterpickers in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only last week in Markinch, as I was walking up to the railway station, the lady in front of me stopped to pick up two bits of litter outside the station door, and popped them in the adjacent bin. It wasn\u2019t her responsibility. It wasn\u2019t her litter. But she took it upon herself to do something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the hills, it\u2019s the accepted norm to carry litter out when you find it. And indeed, most folk I know carry a plastic bag for that express purpose, just in case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s barely a beach in the country that doesn\u2019t have a community beach clean. Some beaches in Fife even have litterpicks hanging up for public use. And only last month, our workplace took part in a source-to-sea litter pick in Aberdeenshire.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"597\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d-597x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28908\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d-597x600.jpg 597w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d-149x150.jpg 149w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 597px) 100vw, 597px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A great (and successful) idea on the Fife coast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Litter picking is weirdly popular. In my ranger experience, no events ever garnered as much local interest as the greenspace clean-ups and litterpicks. Whole cub\/scout troops would come along. Family groups &#8211; kids, parents and grandparents. Long term residents and newcomers alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s because people felt strongly about their local communities and greenspaces, wanted to do something, and did it with good humour and enthusiasm. Community litterpicks were therefore often the most enjoyable, and certainly best attended of any events the ranger service organised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trouble is, you really needed a small army to deal with litter on that scale, and West Lothian Litter Pickers was one such army &#8211; An unstoppable force of 700 members at the time, but now more in the region of 4000, figuratively and literally sweeping the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a time, when I was working there, their pace of growth and enthusiasm quite literally overwhelmed the council\u2019s ability to deal with the rubbish they were bagging-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an age of austerity and cut-backs it\u2019s not surprising that community litter picking has been taken-up by the voluntary sector. Collectively, volunteers have both the numbers and the time to do this kind of thing. That\u2019s both amazing and commendable, but whether it\u2019s a good thing or not that volunteers have to make up the difference, I\u2019ll leave up to you to decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But regardless of whether it\u2019s cleared by council employees or volunteers, it is still someone picking up someone else\u2019s litter. Same cause. Same effect. And regardless of who picks it up, it just comes back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I therefore wouldn\u2019t blame anyone for feeling apathetic when they try to keep their communities clean. One lady told me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>I litter pick round the village &#8211; often wonder how everyone can walk past it &amp; ignore it but I enjoy looking at a clear area. But no sooner is it cleared than new stuff gets dumped &amp; I am not sure why I bother! \u2018<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s certainly what struck me after our ranger-led community clean-ups &#8211; how quickly a place could succumb once again. It was never a one-off. The clean-ups had to be regular, because that\u2019s how fast the litter would accumulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Real Food Caf\u00e9 in Tyndrum is a case in point. They started organising community litterpicks in Tyndrum in 2020, clearing away 28 sacks of litter from the village on their first attempt. Five years later, eight litterpicks per year are needed to stay on top of the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Baling-out the bath like that is necessary of course, if it helps prevent your home from flooding, but it\u2019s time-consuming, mentally exhausting, and ultimately will never end unless you turn the tap off as well. That\u2019s why there\u2019s more litter out there than anyone can really deal with. It never stops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And while there are undoubtedly cases to be made about the state of public finances where waste collection and disposal are concerned, most litter ultimately has the same binary decision behind it. A littering choice, by every individual, as to whether or not they will do it.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"595\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e-595x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28909\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e-595x600.jpg 595w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e-149x150.jpg 149w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/e.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 595px) 100vw, 595px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Some of the flytipping I\u2019ve dealt with over the years<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Research in Scotland in 2007 found that 54% of respondents admitted to having ever dropped litter, with 46% admitting to dropping litter at least occasionally nowadays. But, in a study carried out in 2009\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018\u2026<em>only 33% of those observed littering just moments before agreeing to be interviewed, admitted that they had littered within the previous 24 hours, while 28% told the interviewer that they had never littered in their life\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This suggests that people do feel a sense of shame about littering. Indeed, in a 2009 Keep Britain Tidy survey, 75% of people who admitted to littering said they felt guilty about it. As one of the drivers interviewed for the UVL research report said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<em>I don\u2019t think about it, I just do it, and then as soon as I\u2019ve done it, I feel like I just want to stop the car and go and find it, because it just makes you feel really bad.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we clearly know it\u2019s wrong, why do we do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given the prevalence of litter worldwide, there\u2019s no shortage of studies and reports trying to make sense of the motivations behind littering. Common conclusions reached through interviews and surveys are that many people know someone else will clear it up, or that it\u2019s not a big deal because \u2018it\u2019s just one small item\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some people in the UVL survey placed a greater emphasis on having a clean car than having a clean roadside:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>I don&#8217;t like rubbish in my car, so I&#8217;ll try and get it out at the first opportunity, even if that means throwing it out the window or something. I just can&#8217;t have it around me.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The convenience of getting rid of it instantly seems to outweigh any negatives. In that sense, dropping litter is the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A recent National Highways survey on littering found that \u2018<em>15% do so because they say they don\u2019t have time to dispose of it properly<\/em>\u2019, \u2018<em>13% justify their actions by claiming \u201ceveryone does it<\/em>\u201d, and \u2018<em>22% say they do it out of habit\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Studies also find that when you\u2019ve littered once, it\u2019s easier to do it again. It becomes habitual, and in turn you become desensitised to both the act and the consequences. But regarding the latter, in terms of fines and enforcement, people know there\u2019s unlikely to be any consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"441\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f-441x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28910\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f-441x600.jpg 441w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f-220x300.jpg 220w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f-110x150.jpg 110w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f-1129x1536.jpg 1129w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/f.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 441px) 100vw, 441px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Pants. There are ALWAYS pants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But litter shapes the way we perceive a place. An intriguing Dutch study in 2008 left 5 Euros, clearly visible in an envelope, hanging out of a letterbox. 13% of passers-by stole the envelope when the area was clean, whereas 25% did so when it was surrounded by litter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authors of that study suggested that \u2018<em>signs of social disorder (in this case, litter), dampened people\u2019s impulse to act for the good of the community by eroding their sense of social obligation\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Social norms can change depending on where you are, and humans tend to accept and comply with whatever social norms they are presented with. This is the basic idea that litter breeds litter. Worryingly, when Scottish local authorities are facing a \u00a3647m budget shortfall, any reduction in waste disposal services therefore risks having a disproportionately large impact on communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But while studies find, quite widely, that littering is less likely in areas kept clean and looked-after, or where there are more bins, this can only get you so far. That\u2019s because it doesn\u2019t matter how close or how empty a bin is, it doesn\u2019t mean it will get used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first time I saw someone actually chuck a McD\u2019s out their window was in the car park at Beecraigs Country Park. I went over, picked it up, knocked on the window and (half confused, half angry) cheerily said \u2018hi, you dropped this\u2019, as though I\u2019d genuinely thought they\u2019d done it without realising. I pointed at the two massive bins, with \u2018LITTER\u2019 etched on their fronts, just 10 metres away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018<em>Keeping you in a job, pal\u2019<\/em>, came the reply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Other rangers had told me about that infamous retort, but I thought it was a ranger myth. Surely nobody would ACTUALLY say that?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I told him no, it wasn\u2019t keeping me in a job. Instead I told him how, for every 2hrs of litter picking we had to do, it was one less school class we could host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<em>The children! Won\u2019t somebody think of the children!!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But he wasn\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And just a few months ago, my better half was parked outside the shop in Braemar, when a local kid walked out. They immediately unwrapped an ice cream and discarded bits of the wrapper into the wind. The bin was a few short paces away. A few more steps, and a bit more wrapper got discarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was so incensed he pulled up alongside and said to the kid \u2018&#8221;<em>What makes you think it&#8217;s ok to drop your litter on the street<\/em>?&#8221;. The lad looked startled, said he\u2019d dropped it by mistake and would go back and put it in the bin. The lad turned around and walked back towards the wrapper, then my other half drove off again and watched in his rear-view mirror, and when the lad thought he\u2019d gone he just turned back around and carried on walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a surprising number of people, it doesn\u2019t matter how numerous or bleedin\u2019 obvious your bin provision is, they\u2019ll still drop stuff where they stand. And no profusion of bins is going to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/g-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/g-800x600.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/g-320x240.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/g-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/g.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">My very first \u2018dirty\u2019 campsite \u2013 Pentlands, 2007<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Change IS possible, of course. The American cyclist pondered whether there had been any public awareness campaigns here. Of course there have! Does anyone remember Flingin\u2019s mingin\u2019, from 2013?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some campaigns even work. A campaign in Manchester, Dudley and Wiltshire called \u2018Death Trap\u2019, highlighted the harm that litter does to wildlife. It cited 2018 research that 2.9 million small mammals, such as mice, shrews, voles and hedgehogs, die in the UK as a direct result of littering. This information was put on roadsides where the traffic generally moved very slowly and the messages could be read. Littering fell by 26% on those roadsides, and there was a 34% decrease in discarded bottles and cans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taking a different tack, Fenland District Council in Cambridgeshire reduced litter by 58% by using a \u2018positive reinforcement\u2019 campaign, which simply communicated the fact that 8 out of 10 people don\u2019t litter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Regardless of whether littering is better or worse than it used to be, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that it\u2019s bad now. And this matters. It REALLY matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People consistently rate a clean and safe environment to live in as among their strongest concerns within their daily lives, and there are plenty of studies on how the visibility of litter adversely affects our behaviour and happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the cost of all this to the taxpayer is mindblowing. In the most recent ScotGov set of figures for littering, the direct cost to Scottish local authorities of litter (equipment, fleet costs and facilities etc) is estimated at \u00a348m per year. Dedicated personnel costs alone are \u00a332 million. Flytipping costs, incurred by 66,159 flytipping incidents, cost local authorities a further \u00a312 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The annual cost of clearing litter in just one country park in Scotland is reported as \u00a335,960. Most country parks are run by cash-strapped local authorities, so just imagine what else that could be spent on? If we drop litter, expecting the public purse to clear it up, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The indirect costs are greater still, ranging across mental health, crime, wildlife, wildfire damage, pest control, volunteer costs, direct injuries to people and livestock, road debris and accidents, punctures to bike and vehicle tyres, and adverse impacts on tourism and investment. Add all that together, and the Scotgov 2023 report estimates a total cost of \u00a3280 million per year.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/h-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28912\" style=\"width:840px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/h-800x600.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/h-320x240.jpg 320w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/h-200x150.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/h.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A cow happily munching on a plastic bag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Faced with all this bad news, it\u2019s good to try and put a positive spin on this subject. To end on something uplifting. But what positive, uplifting point can you end on where litter is concerned?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, while it was frequently disheartening how much litterpicking we had to do in the country parks, I nonetheless found consolation in the knowledge that almost all of packaging and food etc that was brought into the country parks, or purchased within them, was deposited in (or near) a bin. Indeed, it took the whole of Saturday morning, every weekend, to empty the 30-something bins at Beecraigs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s because most people DO care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that gives me hope that we CAN do better. I just don\u2019t know why we aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my guilty pleasures is watching YouTube travel videos, made by overseas visitors to Scotland and the UK. It\u2019s interesting to see and hear an unfiltered, instant impression of where you live, partly because you have pride in where you live and you hope folk have a nice time, but also because it\u2019s nice to have positive aspects about your home pointed out to you that you\u2019ve forgotten about, taken for granted, or perhaps not even considered before. In short, as a country, it can make us feel better about ourselves. So there I was, watching one such vlog<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/litter-in-scotland-why-are-we-so-rubbish\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more &#8250;<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28906,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28913,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions\/28913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}