[miseg]

Not in the UK, but I've indeed considered taking photos of every piece of litter I see on my walk.

But my next step is to think, if I'm taking a photo, I might as well pick it up instead of complain.

My next step of logic is I can't conceivably help to change the behaviour of people that live around me in the city to not throw litter, so don't occupy myself with it.

[tudorw]

That said, humans love to copy, so if enough people see you picking up random litter, as I often do too, then they may do the same, as you said, some won't change, but if the 99% of us who don't litter just spend a tiny bit of time picking up the 1%'s trash we all get to live in a clean world! Here's hoping...

[rodhan]

Ever since I learned about the Broken Window Theory of urban decay in The Pragmatic Programmer I try to pick up litter and tidy things up where I can. Worst case, someone laughs at you for wasting your time, but even then you're making the world a better place by making people laugh. It's all good :)

[stuxnet79]

Hey - can you expand on what was said about the broken window theory of urban decay in the pragmatic programmer - I'd formulated a similar hypothesis just based on my limited experience collaborating with others in programming projects. I didn't know some academic had come up with a term for it..

[rodhan]

In the Pragmatic Programmer book [1], to help make the point that if you keep your code clean, it is more likely to stay that way, the authors cite the "broken windows" theory [2]. They mention a case where police observed an abandoned car lying untouched on a dark street for days, but once a window was smashed, vandals destroyed the car within hours [3]. I don't know much beyond that, but the theory rings true to me and I try to do my bit to stop it, in code and in real life.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4099.The_Pragmatic_Progr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

[3] http://www.artima.com/intv/fixit2.html

[stuxnet79]

Thanks for the links. The theory rings true to me as well. I've coerced sloppy colleagues into writing cleaner code when working on my sections of the project. Conversely I find that I relax my normally high standards when I work on spaghetti code.

[anon1385]

Where I live in the UK the issue is rarely a single piece of litter. It's things like lay-bys or roadsides strewn with thousands of pieces of litter (and human faeces, used sanitary/contraceptive products etc). The logistics industry is the biggest offender: lay-bys are used as ad-hoc lorry parks and the local council would have to send out a team several times a week to keep them clean (they do clear them every now and again when enough people complain, but it never takes long for the mess to return since HGVs are parked in these lay-bys 20+ hours a day). They claim to be unable to afford to do this, and seem unwilling to demand that the companies responsible clean up their act.

The second biggest issue is verges and field gates full of old tyres, rubble, old appliances, asbestos and other rubbish that has been dumped. This has been exacerbated recently by the council only opening their waste disposal sites a few days a week, and charging to dispose of most things.