He drives a trash-can.

[reddragdiva]

The terrorists have won. Their goal all along was to turn Britons into litterbugs by forcing the removal of the bins.

Australians are very well trained not to litter. You can tell the Australian in the middle of London by the crisp packet they've carried for a mile and a half rather than dropping.

(I fear I have been going native. I WAS DRIVEN TO IT.)

Compare the slogans: "Keep Australia Beautiful" versus ... "Keep Britain Tidy."

Comments

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

In the late 1990s I was patiently awaiting the litter bins to be brought back as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. This now seems unlikely.

"Keep Britain Beautiful" would result in sniggers. I'm not really sure about "Tidy" though - does this means we need to sort all the towns into alphabetical order? We should move Andover and Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Cornwall, and have Winchester and Yeovil on the Shetlands.

[mofette.livejournal.com]

i HATE littering.

One of my exes used to litter on the grounds that the city was a hole anyways, I tried pointing out that it was a hole because people like him dropped litter.

I always stick stuff back in my bag, or know where the nearest bin is.

[phelyan.livejournal.com]

Fortunately the rural areas of Britain (like Hitchin) have bins everywhere. Now, if we could only get the Hong Kong style bins with the little ashtrays on top and £100 spot fine for littering/spitting...

[twicezero.livejournal.com]

yeah, the pockets of my coat and my bag get so full of stuff cos i don't litter. I do sometimes disturb people who do litter, i guess i should do it more...

[m0rbid-princess.livejournal.com]

Trouble is they are always full to capacity - I end up lugging coke cans and crisp packets for miles...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It's not generally a British trait; it's a London one. When I took wechsler up to Newcastle, he was surprised how clean and unlittered the city is, considering its size. People are just brought up not to throw litter on the ground like that.

[reddragdiva]

There are other places in Britain than London? TERR'IST!!

[twicezero.livejournal.com]

i think it was just as bad in brum when i was growing up... The bin men in london don't help though. I've watch the way they throw the rubbish around so they leave a mess on the street/curb. really can't see the point in that...

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

As a Canajan I also have been taught not to litter. When I was growing up, littering was as bad as lying, or stealing, or throwing out cans and bottles instead of recycling them... and I still shove my litter into pockets/bags/whatever until I get to somewhere that has a bin.

Sometimes the litter bothers me so much that I will pick up other people's litter and put it in a trash can, but if I did this with all of it I would never get anything else done.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Ah, no. Not as far as you 'Strines are concerned.

Actually, I see the reason. There are no litter louts in Australia because of a covert program to deport them all to London. All we need to do to confirm this is to correlate the incidence of litter with the incidence of Australians.

Data point: Royston.

Australians - none that I've encountered.
Litter - none that I've encountered.

QED

<G,D&R>

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

"Excuse me, I think you dropped something," sometimes works well, but could also get you very badly hurt if you say it to the wrong person. I'm too afeared, even if I wear big boots.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

I imagine, though, that Newcastle isn't a particularly attractive target to terrorists. Sort of like all the grungy parts of London where there are still bins aplenty.

On an Australian note, I wonder how long until Sydney loses its bins.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

I was brought up not to drop litter, but I can see the lesson didn't get through to a lot of people, worse thing I saw recently was the man who drove up to his house, parked, got out of his car, finished the bottle of juice he was drinking and *threw it on the ground before going in through his gate and into his house*. Would it really have been so much effort to carry it inside and put it in his own bin? And if people don't care about littering the street they live on, there's not much chance of them being tidy elsewhere :(

I did think recycling drives would help with such things, making people aware that rubbish is a problem, but now we have one locally only about half the households even bother putting their purple recylcling box out for collection.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

The slogans are crap. I regularly deal with "Don't Mess With Texas", and yet my fellow Texians are some of the biggest slobs on the planet. "Whadda yew mean, Ah gotta dump mah ashtray in a GARBAGE CAN instead of out the window?"

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I was brought up not to litter, so I hold on to stuff until I find a bin, often.

[reddragdiva]

Ah, see, you're not from London. Here, littering counts as urban renewal.

Keep * Beautiful

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

I'm imagining that it has more to do with Australia not having inherited the British tradition for rubbishing everything and complaining about how the country isn't what it used to be. I.e., there's not really an Australian equivalent of the Crap Towns books, and Australian bogans don't attract anywhere near the level of contempt and derision that Britain's chavs do.

Re: Keep * Beautiful

[reddragdiva]

No, we spend our time going on and on and fucking ON about how wonderful Australia is in every possible regard to a degree that might make an American say "steady on a bit!"

I mean, it is that wonderful, it's just a bit of a contrast from everywhere else.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I'm also Canadian. I do all of the above as well.

And as I've said before on multiple occasions, Bristol has bins everywhere and people are still too ignorant to use them.

Re: Keep * Beautiful

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

The thought of an American saying "Steady on" has me giggling like a schoolgirl. "Chill, man, jus chill, okay?" possible. Australia seems like America with *pride* instead of patriotism.

Re: Keep * Beautiful

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

If Australia is so great, why do I know so many Australians who are living here? ;) (there is even one where I work)

Re: Keep * Beautiful

[reddragdiva]

It's our inbuilt genetic need for cramped grey concrete spaces and dismal weather. (Except those of us from Melbourne, who have expansive grey concrete spaces and dismal weather.)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of living in Leeds. You could always tell if it was bin day because of the rubbish strewn all over the street.

[redcountess]

I find some crevice in the mountain and stick my rubbish there, then will wander around looking for a wash room and going "ewwwww"!

[redcountess]

I don't think it'll happen - there has been a bin bombing in Sydney - 1978 outside the Hilton during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting - and they didn't withdraw bins then.

[redcountess]

I do that, and our council's recycling contractor is so pants we've taken to throwing out stuff, and I hate doing that, but we don't have the resources to store it and take it down to the tip ourselves :-(

[zenmonkeykstop.livejournal.com]

I blame Thatcher. Heaven forfend that social problems should actually be addressed, let's just get rid of the bins and send in the Army.

Oxygen of publicity me bollix.

Re: Keep * Beautiful

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Probably to counterbalance all the Britons who make up the vast majority of Australia's illegal immigrants and visa overstayers.

[horngirl.livejournal.com]

There are no public bins in London?!
*boggle*

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

You should see how bad it is in Brazil. People go on and on about how they love the beaches, then leave their garbage everywhere when they visit. Drives me nuts.

[baralier.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing the announcement that they were being removed. I think it was around the late 80s.

Yeah 20 years of litter build up :-)

[reddragdiva]

Didn't they remove them from the train stations for the 2000 Olympics?

[reddragdiva]

Only in the bits where TERR'ISTS might congregate!