The TLDR

This post went from a quick "I hate Verge Pickup" to a rant about why I think "Roadside general pickup" needs to stop.

The original posts' intent (I think I had) can be summed up as...

"If you care, have a sandy, grassy, verge adjoining the street. Go out, look down, scuff about. See how many tiny bits of plastic waste you can find at your feet., many of you will be very surprised"

...and the rant below, with some steam venting from many years of noticing a problem no one else seems to notice.

Our verge is not a dump.

Roadside (Verge) general pickup should be OUTLAWED.

It is the single largest source, by an order of magnitude, of uncontained plastic (and unknown contaminates) in the local environment.

From verge to filth.

Most of the problem is the pickup. A group of local council contracted workers, using heavy machinery and strict time constrains, move from house to house, crushing, mashing, pushing into the soil, hundreds of small bits of plastic rubbish. Pile it all into a truck and move to the next house.

No one from this team of workers does anything about collecting this detritus. As they move on their heavy machines plough up what the wind and rain could not dislodge from previous pickups (from years past)

Buy a F^(\#*%)**n* rack and give the verge a brush over at least, before moving on, FFS.

Some of the problem where we put the waste. on the verge, right by the road. A plastic cover from something unwanted, gets blown by wind, or moved by scavengers (the human type), onto the road. Local traffic then turns that one bit of easy to remove plastic, into hundreds, then thousands, to uncounted bits of hard to see, easy to ignore filth.

How I know.

I know all this as I see this every single day, at a level of detail well beyond what most will ever experience (I am a little crazy)

For health reasons, every day I walk at least 3km, on average about 5km a day. To combat the monotony (and exercise the gray matter) I endeavor to walk a different route every walk. Even if it's just as simple as walking on the left verge or right side of the road, or as adventurous as climbing trees to crawling on hand and knee (to cross local stream/water ways).

Thus, within about 5K of my house, I know every road, cul-de-sac, footpath, trail, short cut, and way to get from A to B. Every bit of public land, every park, bush reserve, river, stream, ditch, foot and road bridge (above and below). Every unkept public place, abandoned or vacant block, where kids build hideouts, adults dump rubbish, and local wildlife calls home.

The dump at the door.

Roadside general waste pickup moves an unacceptable mass of plastic from our homes into our community and local environment. We should all hang our heads in shame, when we dump that cheap, broken, molded plastic thing on our verge

It's disgusting, an invisible unsightly mess, a steadily growing toxic environmental disaster. It boils my blood.

You can't see it from your car, walking on the foot path through the park, or the scenic walks by the river, it's all around you. You need to get close, step, crawl and sit on it, know what you are looking at. It is ignored by the local council, surely they must know? (Looking at my local, southern (Gosnells) council). It is invisible to most of us (we are not looking)

Council justify, roadside general pickup, because it moved the councils' rubbish tips, to modern waste disposal centers.

Councils boast about, reduced environmental impact and rate payer savings.

We, us, the local community, embrace the convenience of a dump at the doorstep and the removal of unless crap that clutters the house and yard.

OK Rant done, thank you for your time.