exo : blah

Something I notice a lot as I cycle along the back roads of Fife is the quantity of rubbish beside them. I don't think that Fife is especially unusual in this regard either. Most of it is, if not exactly explicable to me, not surprising: crisp packets, empty cigarette packets, empty fizzy drink cans and so on. Some of it is baffling.

This afternoon I noticed at least a dozen cans of Tennants spread over about a mile. The odd can every now and again makes sense but so many in such a short distance is hard to account for. You have to assume those responsible were in a car as the road in question doesn't really connect anywhere of note. Not to mention that a dozen cans of lager are reasonably weighty, although the consumption rate involved indicates this to be a rapidly diminishing problem, and the first can is several miles from anything that could even describe itself as a hamlet. Assuming that these cans have indeed been left by people in a car then you either have to imagine a car full of people shotgunning cans of Tennants and hurling them out the car as they finish or people with a car full of empty cans throwing them out as they go. Neither seems terribly likely.

The other thing that amazes me is the quantity of McDonald's branded rubbish I see. I don't see very much of it but as most of the roads I cycle on are at least 20 miles from the nearest McDonald's to see any is vaguely astounding.

What puzzles me most about all this rubbish is that it's there at all. Ignoring the possibility that the perpetrators have any sort of environmental conscience, or at least one that stretches beyond the environment within their car, I can't help but think that throwing things out your car is no more effort than to put it in a bin at the end of your journey. I'm apparently mistaken in this belief.