Cyclists and littering

[geo]

Take a small sandwich bag or suchlike to put the empty wrappers in.

Now theres an obvious solution, the bigger question is why the hell havent I ever thought of it

 

[HLaB]

I chuck banana skins, usually try to make sure they go into some thick vegetation. Being biodegradable I've always assumed this was ok, thoughts?

They are biodegradable but take a lot longer to degrade than other fruit and can look unsightly; some folk take serious offence to chucking them but I must admit I throw them away 99% of the time like you.

 

[ianrauk]

Now theres an obvious solution, the bigger question is why the hell havent I ever thought of it

I'm here to help

 

[GetAGrip]

Banana skins are lobbed into thick hedges or undergrowth. Though, I wouldn't discard any fruit skins or cores on public roads or pavements. Paper and plastic wrappers taken home or binned. Don't use jells so none to discard. I think lazy litter lobbers are totally selfish and should be fined heavily.

 

[Boris Bajic]

I chuck banana skins, usually try to make sure they go into some thick vegetation. Being biodegradable I've always assumed this was ok, thoughts?

I have always chucked banana skins in the countryside from car and bicycle. Also apple stalks (I eat the core).

I have a couple of friends who tell me they take so long to biodegrade that it's litter....

But having ridden the same roads for fifteen years I've never seen one I've thrown. There are also no banana trees on the verges.

I'm happy to be wrong on this if anyone has an answer.

 

[MisterStan]

I often see discarded inner tubes along the roadside, obviously from cyclists who don't repair punctures and don't care about litter. If I can stop I pick them up to repair and use myself.

I stopped to sort out an unscheduled deflation yesterday, it must have been a common spot for this because there was a pile of tubes lying on the verge, i'd hazard a guess at 6 or 7! Needless to say, my tube went into the pannier and was repaired at my desk during my lunch break.

 

[e-rider]

Tricky one this,fruit leftovers always get tossed to the fields and I cant see a problem with that at all. paper goes in the back pocket the tricky ones for me are gel packets, as they tend to be a bit sticky / messy I dont want to shove them in my pockets and I must be honest I do tend to throw them aside (wrong I completely agree ) I ease my conscience by the fact I dont use them very often only on very long rides which i dont do too often. to wrap them in cling film or the likes would mean stopping so I dont see much of an option ! open to suggestions though as I really do hate litter

this is exactly the problem I'm trying to highlight - in the past with numbers of cyclists being far less, perhaps the odd gel packet did no harm. But now, every man (and woman) and their dog are cycling. Even if you only do it now and then, it's a problem with so many other people doing it too!!! STOP IT

 

[Globalti]

I remember getting mixed up with an Iron Man near Chorley a couple of years ago; I was shocked at the numbers of green Gatorade bidons thrown down in the road, I followed a trail of them, along with gel sachets and energy bar wrappers. Disgusting altogether.

Also, to my amazement, on one occasion when I ventured onto an MTB trail centre, the appalling numbers of PET fizzy drink and mineral water bottles from the centre shop, discarded by the first couple of kms of the trail. Why, FFS?

 

[MisterStan]

I remember getting mixed up with an Iron Man near Chorley a couple of years ago; I was shocked at the numbers of green Gatorade bidons thrown down in the road, I followed a trail of them, along with gel sachets and energy bar wrappers. Disgusting altogether.

Not condoning it, but surely the event would have some sort of staff cover to clear that up?

 

[Herr-B]

The first time I took a gel out I put the packet, folded, in my seat bag. Now gel packets get folded so the sticky open bit is wrapped up, with the torn off bit inside too and in a rear pocket. I took my first banana on Saturday, stopped at a bench to eat it with a bin next to it so it went in there (as did the gel packet), but I must admit this morning's banana went into the hedgerow.

I abhor litter, but banana skins aren't litter (nor are apple cores), they're compost.

 

[Globalti]

Agreed, banana skins thrown into the landscape aren't a problem.

Orange peel dumped on mountain tops is a problem though.

 

[psmiffy]

some people take it very seriously

 

[ankaradan]

If you carry it out with you, you can carry it back again.

There is no real excuse for dropping any litter.

 

[Mile195]

I'm with the majority here. I will chuck banana skins into bushes, but the rest comes home, or at least as far as the next bin.

I can't bear it when car drivers litter either. Although I have to confess to having picked up someone's discarded macdonalds bag from the road, and throwing it back into their open-topped BMW as I cycled past while they queued in heavy traffic... It gave me an enormous sense of wellbeing!!

 

[GrasB]

I once put the end of a kebab I'd not wanted to finish in a hedge & sat in the lay by looking at routes etc. within about 5 min that area was full of birds fighting over everything. So if it's something an animal would forage & consume or will decompose it ends up in the hedgerow, else it's carried home/to the nearest bin. Not just on a bike but in the car too.

There's a stretch of road that I ride down quite often with a drive-through MacD' & the amount rubbish that ends up on the road is appalling. Worse than that because animals are attracted to the sugary drinks & fatty foods you'll get a lot of road-dumb animals scurrying across the road to their free meal