Dirty rural visitors are dropping farmers right in it
ecently, while gathering farming jokes and stories for a book aimed at raising cash for the RSABI, Scotland’s rural charity, an Angus farmer told me a tale about “toon dung”, which was his description of the contents of the dry toilets in operation in times past in poorer parts of towns and cities.
They had to be emptied regularly and this normally involved a man with a horse and cart. When the cart was full, it was then taken to a farm on the outskirts of the town where it was used as organic fertiliser. In some cases where railways were used to take the waste further afield, open-topped wagons were used. These would then be emptied by farm workers before being spread on the land to improve the following year’s tattie crop.
Before artificial fertilisers became available, this material was valuable as plant food and farmers spoke highly of its nutrient value – apart, that is, from the odd set of false teeth or clay pipe that had somehow slipped into the pit and did not emerge until the stuff was spread on the fields.
The fertilising virtuous cycle created was not unique to this country as visitors to China, for example, would comment on the little roadside huts which farmers erected to encourage travellers to stop and spend a penny. The buckets of human waste thus filled by the greatly relieved passers-by were then used as fertiliser in the nearby rice fields.
But this smelly, unpleasant but beneficial system came to a halt when it was found that nasty bacteria such as salmonella and E coli were going along for the ride on this merry-goround and there was a risk to human health.
All of the above is mentioned because human waste is again being deposited in the countryside. It, along with other detritus abandoned by the public, has become an issue.
Nowadays the heaps of waste are not of a planned and evenly distributed nature. They are, with no double meaning intended, more of an indiscriminate dumping wherever it suits the urban visitor.
Is this wave of increased littering and despoliation of the countryside just that, a post-lockdown wave? Or isitarisingtrendwherethe public now see rural areas as repositories for their waste?
Either way, it is a reflection on a pretty uncivilised section of our society and, if this increased misuse of the countryside is a regular feature of life, it is high time there is more enforcement of legislation accompanied by more punitive fines.
As it stands, the big problem for farmers and landowners is that they have to clean up all the junk dumped on their land.
The littering problem in the countryside is made worse by the dumping of commercial waste such as building materials and garden prunings, this flytipping being preferred to going along to the local landfill site where charges are made for taking in this material.
While generally worse in areas of scenic beauty or just outside the perimeter of built-up areas, the littering problem exists across the country.
In fact, one of the hotspots has been brought about by the popularity of the North Coast 500, where the previously quiet road has become a “must-do” magnet for visitors. One of the problems arising from its increased usage is the amount of litter that visitors leave behind.
There should be no more promotion of routes unless the suggested roads have back up facilities to cope with the tourist numbers.
The problems listed above are why the lobbying organisations for landlords and farmers would like to see current legislation on littering changed so that the polluter is charged for his/her misdeeds and not the poor sod who has to do the cleaning up.
Oh, and the punchline from the “toon dung” story? You will have to wait and buy a copy of the book Farming is Still a Funny Business when it is published next month by RSABI.