Litter / Littering

Walking through Broadgate yesterday I was disgusted about the amount litter on the pavement. Chewing gum trodden in all over the place. A shoe shop I went into had gum trodden into the carpet. My house overlooks common ground, a field where dog walkers use. On hot summer days (when we get them) the fields stinks because dog owners rarely clear up the dog mess. Couple of years ago I was in Moscow and was amazed at the cleanliness of the city, no graffiti or litter. I mentioned about this to our hotel manager, he replied that they were proud of their city and liked to keep it clean. Wish Coventrians thought the same. Rant over. Les

Terrible that you have to live near a field that stinks of dog poo it must be horrible. Another place that is filthy is the crossing from Upper Well Street over to the Radford Road - it's filthy and covered in things I try not to examine too closely, some days!

Probably because they know what might happen to them for such crimes!!

It strikes me that such things are often governed by two of life's traits; Respect and fear. Both tend to prompt compliance. Respect for another person or their property is generally greeted with compliance of what is considered acceptable behaviour, whereas fear of any consequences of one's actions will generally produce similar results. You either comply because you want to, or comply because you fear what will happen if you don't. Where you find a section of society that "couldn't give a toss" - I doubt you find either of these qualities - which IMHO, is largely the case here. I couldn't agree more Anne. We have been dog owners for more years than I care to remember and I too think there is no excuse whatsoever for not cleaning up after your animal. We always take "poo bags" if we take the dogs out, and to see owners that, referring to my comments above, obviously have neither of those qualities, makes me so angry. You shouldn't own dogs if you can't clear up after them. What also annoys me is to see owners that allow young children to take dogs "for a walk". How will these kids clean up after the dogs in their control? They have no "poo bags" - or the ability to use them if they did. But then I guess it again comes down to the dog owners themselves needing to take more responsibility.

One of the litter related things that really gets to me is cigarette ends. It seems to be the norm these days to smoke a cigarette and then discard the butt on the pavement. I pointed out to a friend of mine that it was a scruffy habit and he said "It's only a fag end". This set me thinking and I asked how many he smoked in a day and he told me 20. If he smoked the same amount every day for a year that would be 7280 cigarettes. Assuming that he disposed properly of a third of those cigarette ends then that would still leave approx 4850 fag ends on the pavements. The big problem is that it is not just him throwing fag ends down so it then becomes a big clean up operation. There seems to be quite a few cigarette disposal bins around so it would be great if they were used a bit more.

I trundled into town today, lots of people not too many shops closed like I expected, wanted to see for myself, I like the block paving by Trinity church which I think should of continued into Broadgate, the grass looks bland needs something in the centre. Some nice raised beds of flowers wouldn't go amiss in Broadgate, I was quite upset at the flower bed surrounding Lady Godiva considering she is on every council van and her history. The town doesn't flow right, I read that the town planner visited Europe for ideas, just an idea, to look to places that flow. I went to the market no fish market, gone, looked for an old school friend who has run stalls with her brother mum and dad for years, asked what she thought of what they've done to the town, her screwed up face said it all, she said she was looking at old photos of how Coventry used to be prewar and she loved it. I can't see the point of making the town disabled friendly when the Coventry people who use the town are not from my experience today followed by colourful language which my daughter said was aimed at me and enraged my daughter. I must agree more litter bins are needed as we were looking around for one. I found the staff in Primark very polite and courteous also Cathedral Lanes also the shoe shop on the hill Hertford Street. I don't believe in heavy policing of a town as it gives a wrong message but for the size of the town it should have one here and there as I didn't see one, unless they think the station being in the town is enough. I liked the hanging baskets in the upper precinct. France is spotless too Les Mac and you can hear on radio of expats saying when they come back to visit family hear in UK how dirty it is, only places like Solihull, Beer, Truro, matches France in cleanliness, Bedworth isn't too bad, they have a man sitting on a sweeper going round, most big cities aren't spotless and I've been to nearly all visiting relatives, no gum on my four wheels today. When we were kids mum and dad taught us put it in the bin or wrap it up put it in our pockets and take our rubbish home.

I think the same people who disregard the litter laws are the same who repeatedly leave their shopping trolleys anywhere it suits them and not make the effort and put them in the trolley bays. To have to move a trolley out of a parking spot on a busy day is damn annoying to say the least. To look at some of these people a little exercise would do them good!

I stood waiting for someone on Broadgate a couple of weeks ago and watched a group of two female adults (both with youngsters in pushchairs) and an adult male, sat on one of the new benches, eating what appeared to be some packs of take-away sandwiches. Right at the end of the bench they were sat on was a sparkling new litter-bin. All three adults finished their food, screwed up the packaging - and promptly threw it on the floor!! What hope have we got?

I agree with all the above opinions, there was a camera shop in town and years ago my husband walked in with loads of chewing gum on his shoe from outside and walked it all over the carpet, it was so embarrassing. There is no respect anymore, hubby told me never to approach the culprits anymore because of reprisals, l was seething recently in Warwick, waiting in the car by the Castle wall, watching the occupants in the next car, eating their snack and throwing the lot out of the window and driving off. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Huge dogs off leads frighten me to death as well, they bound over to our little dog and you are terrified and then the owner casually comes along to retrieve it and declares 'how friendly it is and not to worry it wouldn't bite' but you don't know that at the time do you, whilst panicking and spoiling your own walk. As you all say, it's down to a lack of respect in everyday life. In those lists of people that have gone to court in the newspapers, you never see anyone fined for litter, ever. All those CCTV cameras are around and they could easily spot the culprits, they should find them and make them pick the litter up for six months. Phew........ I'll get back an historical note. I never notice any rubbish/llitter on the old photo's we use, or am I too busy looking at the buildings to notice, I shall look more carefully on the roads. I don't think people ate things walking about so much in the old days, it's so uncivilized I think nowadays to wander about with a take-away sandwich instead of at least sitting somewhere. I am afraid it's the norm now. At least Tony S used to take his pork and apple batch back to work to eat

Thanks for replies. Shortly after making my original post, I went to our local waste paper bank in the car park at Allesley Hall. Someone had emptied the contents of a car ashtray on to the floor. Cigarette butts are made of cellulose that take some time to decay. No good moaning about it, things will never change unless some really hefty fines are imposed. Les

I would be more concerned with people who spit on the floor, as we have uncurable TB here now, which we have the highest cases in Europe, down in Middlesex police are out in anti stab vests preventing people spitting on the streets, if you walk into any spittle and walk it back into your house it breeds in your home, or if some one sneezes or coughs body fluids you can get it. It has been displayed that people on buses and trains are getting a fatal lung disease on the buses, is this because of air conditioning spreading it. I had informed ages ago a lady gardener who sits in the House of Commons who as good as called me a liar, also a scare monger, until her friend in Middlesex confirmed what I had said. When I informed our council their reply was so what, so I hung up.

Really sorry Morgana, I don't understand what you mean, could you explain please? That's terrible. Did you get the name of the person you spoke to? Could you let me know what number and when you rang as I'd like to make some enquiries about that.

They probably leave their takeaway litter under their cars too before they drive off. I have often seen ignoramuses open their car doors and just throw their empty drink containers under the cars. Must be the same the world over. What is the point of making the laws if they are not implemented? A lot of the ignorance is in their breeding, goodness knows what their houses are like! I suppose the takeaway outlets would come into this problem somewhere but more so the yobbos that use them (I might exclude the pork batch shop though).

Hi Tony it was the main number who put me through to a man after explaining my call, he didn't give his name, I'm not a pushy person, my trouble. I phoned beginning of this year when I first read it off tv interactive news, under health, the next I heard about it was on news when the Olympics came and they stated they were screening at airports all Eastern Europeans from where its bought in. The lady gardener, sitting in House of Commons, she is one of Labours thinktank Fabian Society, she is like you a monitor but on a garden chat site where you can chat about anything. I brought the subject up on a thread, her reply was we eradicated TB years ago and I was scaremongering until on garden chat her friend told her I was right as her town in Middlesex was being policed to prevent it spreading.

It is the same the world over. Canada, like the USA, has a large amount of take-outs and drive-throughs. The used paper cups appear in public washrooms, photo booths, grocery store shelves, on top of mail boxes, in bus shelters, parking spaces, along parts of the main highways used for commuting.