Imagine not possessing the intelligence to use a bin
It’s a depressing thought, but it actually remains necessary to emphasise littering is bad. Judging from our recent reports, simply being self-evident to all but the least mentally advantaged doesn’t mean that the message doesn’t need repeating. Leaving your rubbish is inexcusable.
Should you insist on making life more miserable and unsafe for everyone else, please bear in mind the following four points.
One. When you’re caught and fined, your social superiors reserve the right to laugh at you: more so if you whine that
“the police must have something better to do”.
Two. Mentioning that loads of people drop litter fails to constitute a defence. Neither does saying it was only a sweetie paper, bus ticket, cigarette wrapper or some such.
Three. Your right to moan about how terrible this city is, is compromised out of existence.
Four. When you drop litter, it’s entirely your fault. Saying that there aren’t any bins isn’t only patently not true, it would provide zero excuse even if it was.
Let’s reiterate. If every public bin in the UK was removed tomorrow, there would still be
no excuse for dropping litter. You brought it out with you; you can take it home.
Littering is truly the preserve of the very, very stupid. One difficulty provided by being very, very stupid is that it prohibits you from ever realising that you’re very, very stupid.
The solution? I’m not a hard-liner. I don’t think litter louts should be transported to a desert island. They’d only spoil it. As dropping rubbish is such an incredibly dumb thing to do, the answer could be mass testing. Of IQs.
Anyone whose IQ is below, say, 17, as we suspect is the case throughout the littering community, should be prohibited from street and beach.
You may ask: “Who does he think he is? Does he really think people who have mastered bin use are somehow superior to and cleverer than those who haven’t?”
A sociologically loaded question, requiring detailed consideration which space precludes. So I’ll have a stab at answering with the following. Yes. The sole positive facet to litter droppers is that they provide the rest of us with someone to look down on.