The trashing of our parks and beaches

murpho999

Effects wrote: »

No it won't. Someone drinking a 6 pack of Karpackie isn't going to bother bringing their empty cans with them in order to get €1.80 when they bring them back to the shop.

I actually think they would and set the deposit higher if needs be.

It works in other countries and no reason it wouldn't work here.

It would definitely change some people's behaviour so it would be a positive. Look how people's behaviour changed when the plastic bag levy was brought in and that was a much smaller amount.
Years ago on a windy day you'd see loads of plastic bags flying around the air and now you never see that.

duffmann

I was at a football game in Germany and everyone was drinking cans outside the stadium. There were people going around picking up the empties to earn some money.

Pawwed Rig

I remember visiting China and when you had finished a drink while out and about all you needed to do was hold out the bottle and someone would be taking it off you. Obviously different to here as much poorer place.

They do a scheme in Germany where companies have to recycle and do a money back on cans and plastic bottles. I do not understand why this could not be done here. We need recycling centres in the country

Mimon

murpho999 wrote: »

No it's not BS. The Australia example is true about the BBQ as it's a cultural thing but Australia has a litter problem just like here as shown below. Pictures and article from Sydney.


R


https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australians-still-trashing-their-beaches-and-streets-national-report-finds-20180124-h0n9ar.html

So my point is there's no need to generalise and run Ireland down as a lot of Boards posters want to do.
The rubbish we see in parks and beaches are left there by a selfish and idiotic minority but it has a large and very visual impact but it does not mean it's our culture or everybody does it.

Where did Aussies get their culture from?

osarusan

There are a few of those self-cleaning toilets around Limerick that cost 50c (I think) but do some kind of quick inside steam-clean or spray-clean process after each use. They seem to have been left alone by vandals, or perhaps they're particularly vandal-proof.

Agreed on the need for a deposit on glass/cans/plastic bottles, maybe the drinkers wouldn't pick them up but others would.And it might stop some of the dickheads who smash ther bottles against the nearest wall when the bottle's empty.

Regarding the other rubbish though, I don't know what you do about it. Some people are just filthy pricks who will leave their coffee cup, sandwich wraper and crisp packet behind, and I don't think anything, ever, will make them change.

Pawwed Rig

A problem with paying for toilets is
1. It is a basic need and we pay enough tax
2. You are allowing the filthy dictate to the rest of us
3. Who carries change around anymore? I would rarely have a coin*

*supermarket trolleys are also an issue

murpho999

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

A problem with paying for toilets is
1. It is a basic need and we pay enough tax
2. You are allowing the filthy dictate to the rest of us
3. Who carries change around anymore? I would rarely have a coin*

*supermarket trolleys are also an issue

I had the same issue and a friend gave me lifehack.

Most likely you have a key on your keyring that the top end is round like a coin. Take that off the keyring and put in trolley slot and off you go.

Won't work in the drawer type mechanisms that some have but the other ones it's great.

Effects

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

A problem with paying for toilets is
1. It is a basic need and we pay enough tax
2. You are allowing the filthy dictate to the rest of us
3. Who carries change around anymore? I would rarely have a coin

Just tap for it so. Works on vending machines, so why now for toilets.

PhilOssophy

Effects wrote: »

Just tap for it so. Works on vending machines, so why now for toilets.

And parking. Where there's a will there's a way. I think they'd need an entrance like Croke Park turnstiles to keep the undesirables out.

PhilOssophy

Mimon wrote: »

Where did Aussies get their culture from?

Well given they mention St. Kilda and Bondi, they probably got some of this culture from Ireland's 32 counties....

Pawwed Rig

Effects wrote: »

Just tap for it so. Works on vending machines, so why now for toilets.

That addresses one of the points but not the others.

I wouldn't pay anyone to use a toilet.

Housefree

duffmann wrote: »

I was at a football game in Germany and everyone was drinking cans outside the stadium. There were people going around picking up the empties to earn some money.

At Oxegen years ago they brought in a €3 tax for the empty cups, by the end of the night loads of them everywhere, didn't get to see any of the last acts I did that much collecting, not often you come home from a concert with wads of cash! They had a maximum of bringing back 10 at a time, €30 each time you went back, banging them out all weekend €€€€€€€€€€€€€€

PhilOssophy

Housefree wrote: »

At Oxegen years ago they brought in a €3 tax for the empty cups, by the end of the night loads of them everywhere, didn't get to see any of the last acts I did that much collecting, not often you come home from a concert with wads of cash! They had a maximum of bringing back 10 at a time, €30 each time you went back, banging them out all weekend €€€€€€€€€€€€€€

Would love to see this coming in everywhere - at every concert/sporting event, there is no reason why they couldn't have a deposit and return, so every time you go back to the bar if you bring back empties they give you fresh cleaned ones. Last beer of the night? Bring it back and you get your €3 back.

eleventh

PhilOssophy wrote: »

It is all back to the same problem. We are financially rewarding fly tipping, burning rubbish, etc.

Hence my proposal above to add an average bin charge to the property tax, flat fee, job done. We are too immature as a country to do pay by weight, or the 10% who do all of this damage are anyway.

At least with such a system, coupled with a deposit return scheme we can have a bin on every corner and there is no incentive for somebody to dump their household waste, nor penalty for deciding to bring your rubbish home if it is full.

How would that work exactly, if you don't mind explaining it.

As to tax in general, the tax on the plastic bag was an example of where tax worked to solve that problem.
How much of it was invested back into the environment though?

If a specific tax is brought in, there should be accountability as to what happens when it is paid.

Antares35

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

A problem with paying for toilets is
1. It is a basic need and we pay enough tax
2. You are allowing the filthy dictate to the rest of us
3. Who carries change around anymore? I would rarely have a coin*

*supermarket trolleys are also an issue

So why can't they use some of the tax collected to pay someone to supervise the use of the toilets? At the end of the day, if public toilets are free to enter and not staff supervised, then the sad fact is they will likely be left in an unusable state. I think the only solution is to either charge people or have someone working there making sure they aren't thrashed.

Jesus 3€ per cup is good. What did they cost with anything in them.

Pawwed Rig

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I think that there is a genuinely a portion of the population that believes the government should clean up after them

I would've called you crazy, until I read this thread. Case in Point:

Paul Griffen wrote: »

I prefer to eliminate the issue at source for a fast resolution. In this case its not the people on the beach's fault the bins are overflowing or few and far between.

Correct. But it IS their fault if they choose not to bring their crap home with them. Seeing a full bin and using that as a an excuse to leave your litter strewn about the place, or even piled up on the ground beside the bin, is the mark of a scumbag. Also, the sheer irony of claiming you're eliminating the problem at source when it is YOU who is the source of your litter is off the charts.

Paul Griffen wrote: »

Let it get bad and let it make the media then see how quickly we get large mobile bins with plenty of room that can be tip emptied.
What is it with Irish people accepting such poor service.

Ever hear of broken window theory? Letting it get bad just leads to more and more degeneracy. If the place was kept spotless, then litterbugs would stand out like a sore thumb and less likely to litter. There are whole sections of Dublin that are almost permanently litter strewn and get covered by the media regularly. Doesn't stop the scumbags from wrecking the place, though.

PhilOssophy wrote: »

Well given they mention St. Kilda and Bondi, they probably got some of this culture from Ireland's 32 counties....

I spent Xmas in Melbourne four years ago. They had to ban drinking on the beach from Stephen's Day for about a week because of how badly trashed the beaches around St Kilda were. We had visited a couple of them on the day and it was wall to wall Irish and English backpackers out drinking cans and wrecking the gaff. I must've seen every single GAA county jersey in the sapce of an hour.

Effects

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

That addresses one of the points but not the others.

Food is a basic need, do you refuse to buy food when you go out?

If you don't want to pay for a public toilet, then don't.

PhilOssophy

eleventh wrote: »

How would that work exactly, if you don't mind explaining it.

As to tax in general, the tax on the plastic bag was an example of where tax worked to solve that problem.
How much of it was invested back into the environment though?

If a specific tax is brought in, there should be accountability as to what happens when it is paid.

I had this typed out earlier and don't know what happened.

First to say, it does go against "polluter pays" principle. But polluter pays only works if the polluter actually pays, i.e. they don't fly tip, bring their domestic rubbish to a street bin, etc.

Arbitary figure : €300 per annum for bin charges
Property tax : increased by €300 to cover the above. For this, people get their bin lifts covered for all their bins (note this is how many UK boroughs do it at present).

The logic here is :
1. The councils will know exactly who is paying it - there is no hiding behind GDPR as currently exists.
2. There is no incentive to leave your rubbish beside a park bin. If you bring it home, you aren't being "penalised" so to speak.
3. Likewise, there is no incentive to fly tip or put your rubbish in a street bin.
4. The councils are in full control of the process and will cut out county councils paying millions to people to pick up fly tipped waste. (e.g. Wexford co.co spend 90m on this last year)
5. The council can provide more street bins because they know they won't be full of people's household waste.
6. The council can then tender for the pick-up of a particular region - saving the ridiculous situation where 3-4 lorries go up a street weekly.

It isn't perfect admittedly and of course there are gaps, etc with rental properties (but 300 quid over a whole year isn't an armageddon for the tenants either) but it is stopping the incentive to fly tip or leave your waste for seagulls to pull it around a park.

Combined with a deposit scheme (and a charge for glass bottles as I don't think they are covered by such schemes as they exist) for cans/plastic bottles would massively help the situation. If a charge was added to glass, we could fund a system where we have many more bottle banks, and even at many parks, etc.

No system is perfect and there's plenty of holes in the above, but we have to start to consider alternatives to the current mess. We aren't mature enough as a people to just "do the right thing" so we need to stop incentivising. There will always be scumbags, but we have to try something different.

Otherwise, every time we have a fine day, our parks will continue to be destroyed and we'll all be on here complaining.

Pawwed Rig

Antares35 wrote: »

So why can't they use some of the tax collected to pay someone to supervise the use of the toilets? At the end of the day, if public toilets are free to enter and not staff supervised, then the sad fact is they will likely be left in an unusable state. I think the only solution is to either charge people or have someone working there making sure they aren't thrashed.

I have no problem with them paying someone to monitor toilets. I just think that it should come out of general taxation rather than a separate charge.

Pawwed Rig

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I have no problem with them paying someone to monitor toilets. I just think that it should come out of general taxation rather than a separate charge.

That’s basically asking for free use. The cost should be borne by the user in this case.

Pawwed Rig

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That’s basically asking for free use. The cost should be borne by the user in this case.

Well you could apply that to all sorts of things. Don't have kids - don't want to pay for schools. Not sick - don't want to pay for hospitals etc etc.
It is a toilet. It should be free*.


* as should water which is being done in many places now

PhilOssophy

Deleted User wrote: »

That’s basically asking for free use. The cost should be borne by the user in this case.

People often think that if the tax payer is paying, its not them paying. Never get this logic myself!

The reality is, without a entry charge these places will become filthy, scary, disgusting hell holes which nobody will use but undesirables.

Ger Roe

Kenya Crooked Tarp wrote: »

When our litter problems start to affect tourism numbers / reviews then and only then will anything be be done.

I wouldn't count on that. Look at the state of O'Connell street - I am old enough to have heard people complaining about the dirt and general feeling about the place and hearing litter management plans proposed since the 1970's - not much has changed over the past 50 years, despite several relaunched efforts.

We just don't respect the environment enough and the lazy attitudes from the top with a lack of imaginative and engaging solutions, filters down to the littering activities and bad anti-social attitudes at the bottom.

I have long believed that tourism in this country happens more by accident than design, people want to come here for their own reasons and so they arrive, whether they ever come back though, is another question. I don't think Ireland Inc does enough for them while they are here - we can't even keep the place tidy for them.

Here in North East Wicklow, Greystones and other villages have camper vans regularly parked at the side of the road because we attracted tourists over with promises of an Ireland's Ancient East Drive Route, but nothing was done to cater for them in terms of camping/camper van facilities.

Tourist industry promotion here is all words with no effort to back them up.

20silkcut

mariaalice wrote: »

It more than the colonised don't identify with public property, its identified with the ruling class, parks, and public space, in general, is associated with the ruling class so no sense of ownership.

There is a long tradition of public wealth in nordic countries i.e a sense that it's all owned collectively goes back to Viking time hence there is a different attitude to public property.

Yes the law of jantelovan very specific to Nordic countries. The belief in the collective and that no one is more important or better or superior to anyone else.
Has a dark side too and is believed to contribute to a higher suicide rate. But there is no point in comparing to Nordic countries. Such a principle will never take hold in this country or most other western countries where the individual pursuit of happiness regardless of others is the order of the day and actively encouraged.

PsychoPete

PhilOssophy wrote: »

.
Its a good question - why do you get a big bag with a McDonalds order? Maybe they need to start charging for takeaway packaging?

I'd rather not have everyone knowing I just ordered 40 chicken nuggets

Pawwed Rig

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Well you could apply that to all sorts of things. Don't have kids - don't want to pay for schools. Not sick - don't want to pay for hospitals etc etc.
It is a toilet. It should be free*.


* as should water which is being done in many places niw

I don’t think water should be free either. Whenever there’s a potential tragedy of the commons a pricing mechanism is a solution. Anyway you said earlier you “pay enough tax” so you are looking for this for nothing.

Ger Roe

Ger Roe wrote: »

I wouldn't count on that. Look at the state of O'Connell street - I am old enough to have heard people complaining about the dirt and general feeling about the place and hearing litter management plans proposed since the 1970's - not much has changed over the past 50 years, despite several relaunched efforts.

We just don't respect the environment enough and the lazy attitudes from the top with a lack of imaginative and engaging solutions, filters down to the littering activities and bad anti-social attitudes at the bottom.

I have long believed that tourism in this country happens more by accident than design, people want to come here for their own reasons and so they arrive, whether they ever come back though, is another question. I don't think Ireland Inc does enough for them while they are here - we can't even keep the place tidy for them.

Here in North East Wicklow, Greystones and other villages have camper vans regularly parked at the side of the road because we attracted tourists over with promises of an Ireland's Ancient East Drive Route, but nothing was done to cater for them in terms of camping/camper van facilities.

Tourist industry promotion here is all words with no effort to back them up.

Plenty of people come back. Ireland has a good “product”. Litter is a problem, but not enough to stop tourism. Lots of European cities have issues these days.

Pawwed Rig

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Anyway you said earlier you “pay enough tax” so you are looking for this for nothing.

No I am looking for it to be funded by taxation. I pay tax and I want to be able to pee without contributing more. It is hardly a controversial opinion. :pac:
The government doesn't give me any gifts. I pay for it all via taxation.

Like this for example.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0418/1210647-period-poverty/

I assume you disagree with this too.

How about museums?
Medical cards?

eleventh

PhilOssophy wrote: »

People often think that if the tax payer is paying, its not them paying. Never get this logic myself!

The reality is, without a entry charge these places will become filthy, scary, disgusting hell holes which nobody will use but undesirables.

A place is built, it is supervised/managed. There can be cameras / security as needed. It's basic stuff. Considering pubs, restaurants, everything closed.
In a sane society they would be up already. Not difficult to do. Would cost little to run. It would mean people could go out for the day.