I started regularly picking up litter on our local common (Wadsley & Loxley Common, in Sheffield) during lockdown. Even in what appeared, on the surface, to be uncluttered nature, it's amazing how quickly I could fill an entire bin-bag once I started poking around in the undergrowth.
Now, I live in the most remote part of England, and yet there's rarely a time when I don't come home with something in my pockets (I'm forever forgetting to take a bag, so I now have designated litter-pockets): energy drinks and gels from passing cyclists, vape packaging from the local farmers, sweet and crisp wrappers blown in from far away. A couple of months ago I found a delicate transparent plastic assemblage, which had clearly once been a Peppa Pig foil balloon, worn down to gossamer by months of blowing across heather moorland. I posted it on Instagram, and an artist requested that I send it to them. Can't wait to see what they make of it! Poetry from junk.
Love the idea of turning trash into treasure in that way. I’ll follow along on Insta to see what happens.
I have an idea for an art project using lost shoes. I find a lot of pairs of shoes on my walks. Always pairs, not odd ones. Which in itself is actually very odd.
I like the idea of having designated pockets for rubbish. Bet your dry cleaning costs a fortune!
Dry cleaning? What's that? 😅 I'm just a mucky bugger.
Trash into treasure... it's really a visual/plastic art equivalent of what you do, spinning walks into words.
There are a couple of trees close to where I live, on the roadside between Alston & Penrith, which are full of old shows. I ponder about them every time I drive past. Have just googled and found this: https://walkersarewelcome.org.uk/2013/03/boot-tree-featured-on-bbc/
That boot tree is really interesting. I wonder if, left unchecked, it might start to damage the tree in some way? Here in London we have lots of shoes dangling from phone lines and other cables. At some point, the weight might detach the cable and that’ll be the end of someone’s broadband 😂😂
But thanks for linking me to a site I hadn’t come across before. I love hearing about all these walking communities and initiatives.
A company I did work for has a whole factory devoted to making cellulose acetate, the raw material for cigarette butts. I avoided doing work for that division, essentially a litter factory.
Every trip back confirms that the UK, sadly, remains the litter capital of the western world, although we in the US seem determined to catch up. A train ride through New Jersey a couple of years ago was horrifying.
Even in the environmentally conscious Pacific Northwest, I take a garbage bag on every hike. Plastic water bottles and food wrappers are the most common items, alongside the ubiquitous poo bags that Antonia points out.
Yikes, I imagine that was a hard company to work for.
I'm surprised and bit sad to hear that you see so much trash in the Pacific Northwest. Are you on island? Is some of it being washed up or is it simply being dropped.
We're pretty good here for trash, really, but I'll still find a few pieces on a hike. I found move on a four mile beach walk the other day. It would be different in summer.
It always surprised me being with smokers who’d flick their cigarette butts away. It seems that few understand they’re not made of, I don’t know, paper and cotton.
One of the most common things I see is doggie poo bags by the trail. People always say they’re going to pick theirs up on the way back down but few do!
Yeah, it’s an odd kind of littering. As if it’s acceptable to throw a cigarette butt on the ground when, I think, most people would agree that dropping an empty bottle, can and candy wrapper onto a pavement would be seen as wrong. Maybe we need an awareness campaign to highlight this disparity in thinking. Maybe it could show some people walking around, dropping litter and the end line would be something like ‘you wouldn’t drop an empty soda bottle on the pavement. Why do it with your cigarette?'
I’m with you on the dog poo bags. I see so many of those here in the UK, too. I find it weird that people can take the time to bend down, pick up the poo and bag it, only to dump the bag. We live in strange times, that’s for sure!
I started regularly picking up litter on our local common (Wadsley & Loxley Common, in Sheffield) during lockdown. Even in what appeared, on the surface, to be uncluttered nature, it's amazing how quickly I could fill an entire bin-bag once I started poking around in the undergrowth.
Now, I live in the most remote part of England, and yet there's rarely a time when I don't come home with something in my pockets (I'm forever forgetting to take a bag, so I now have designated litter-pockets): energy drinks and gels from passing cyclists, vape packaging from the local farmers, sweet and crisp wrappers blown in from far away. A couple of months ago I found a delicate transparent plastic assemblage, which had clearly once been a Peppa Pig foil balloon, worn down to gossamer by months of blowing across heather moorland. I posted it on Instagram, and an artist requested that I send it to them. Can't wait to see what they make of it! Poetry from junk.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2o9Hu_sbQ3/
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2o9Hu_sbQ3/
Love the idea of turning trash into treasure in that way. I’ll follow along on Insta to see what happens.
I have an idea for an art project using lost shoes. I find a lot of pairs of shoes on my walks. Always pairs, not odd ones. Which in itself is actually very odd.
I like the idea of having designated pockets for rubbish. Bet your dry cleaning costs a fortune!
Dry cleaning? What's that? 😅 I'm just a mucky bugger.
Trash into treasure... it's really a visual/plastic art equivalent of what you do, spinning walks into words.
There are a couple of trees close to where I live, on the roadside between Alston & Penrith, which are full of old shows. I ponder about them every time I drive past. Have just googled and found this: https://walkersarewelcome.org.uk/2013/03/boot-tree-featured-on-bbc/
That boot tree is really interesting. I wonder if, left unchecked, it might start to damage the tree in some way? Here in London we have lots of shoes dangling from phone lines and other cables. At some point, the weight might detach the cable and that’ll be the end of someone’s broadband 😂😂
But thanks for linking me to a site I hadn’t come across before. I love hearing about all these walking communities and initiatives.
A company I did work for has a whole factory devoted to making cellulose acetate, the raw material for cigarette butts. I avoided doing work for that division, essentially a litter factory.
Every trip back confirms that the UK, sadly, remains the litter capital of the western world, although we in the US seem determined to catch up. A train ride through New Jersey a couple of years ago was horrifying.
Even in the environmentally conscious Pacific Northwest, I take a garbage bag on every hike. Plastic water bottles and food wrappers are the most common items, alongside the ubiquitous poo bags that Antonia points out.
Yikes, I imagine that was a hard company to work for.
I'm surprised and bit sad to hear that you see so much trash in the Pacific Northwest. Are you on island? Is some of it being washed up or is it simply being dropped.
The poo bags are rife in the UK, too.
We're pretty good here for trash, really, but I'll still find a few pieces on a hike. I found move on a four mile beach walk the other day. It would be different in summer.
It always surprised me being with smokers who’d flick their cigarette butts away. It seems that few understand they’re not made of, I don’t know, paper and cotton.
One of the most common things I see is doggie poo bags by the trail. People always say they’re going to pick theirs up on the way back down but few do!
Yeah, it’s an odd kind of littering. As if it’s acceptable to throw a cigarette butt on the ground when, I think, most people would agree that dropping an empty bottle, can and candy wrapper onto a pavement would be seen as wrong. Maybe we need an awareness campaign to highlight this disparity in thinking. Maybe it could show some people walking around, dropping litter and the end line would be something like ‘you wouldn’t drop an empty soda bottle on the pavement. Why do it with your cigarette?'
I’m with you on the dog poo bags. I see so many of those here in the UK, too. I find it weird that people can take the time to bend down, pick up the poo and bag it, only to dump the bag. We live in strange times, that’s for sure!