Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019

Sue and Martin in Mallorca 2019
On the Archduke's Path in Mallorca

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Litter

Following our return from the Alps, I noticed an entry from Alan Sloman concerning his encounter with some 'Shaming Rubbish'.

Alan was distressed with his failure to remove the offending items.

I've encountered some rubbish myself, on the little circuit around which I cycle most days in a vain attempt to retain some of the fitness gained in the Alps.  This is the small lay-by in Gorsey Lane, about half way round my route.

0801Rubbish-Home
I've thought about following Alan's lead and taking a little away every time I pass.  But that's not really practical.  Perhaps I should just take a half time break in one of the armchairs, if they aren't too soggy.

Hopefully the council will do something about this, but as the tip is round the corner, and the rubbish has been here for over two weeks, I suspect there may be a bit more to this story.

I commented on Alan's blog that we saw very little litter during our recent Alpine perambulations.  This does not mean that litter doesn't exist there.  Last year, near the Edel Hut, above Mayrhofen in Austria, we found evidence of litter in the form of this 'NO-LITTERING MEMORIAL' - a huge cairn of litter having been collected by youths in this area in 2004 and 2005.  'Take all your trash home' was the message.

0802Rubbish-Cairn 
One of our friends from the TGO Challenge, Markus Petter, the Austrian who this year started from three different places, has now revealed what he does for a living during the summer.  He has to be both admired and envied.  He leads working parties like the one that created the cairn shown above.

Markus reports as follows:
'I´m attaching another photo which shows my working party (all students from Vorarlberg) after the successful removal of weights of old waste from a mountain hut in the Silvretta area at 2,400 metres. I´ve been working for an alpine littering project during the summer time. We´ve been active in many mountain regions in Austria over the last few months.'

0803Tubinger_Hutte
So, there is litter in the Alps - some 30-40 bags of it here at the Tübinger Hütte.

Well done, Markus.

PS This is my first attempt at using Windows Live Writer.  It seems popular with some of my fellow bloggers.   Let's see if it works!

4 comments:

Alan Sloman said...

Looks like you have cracked it with the cold dead hand of the Live Writer. I notice that your photos are 'clickable'. Do you know how to use Live Writer with web based pictures to make them clickable? I can't!

I would just ring the council to that lot shifted - looks like someone went to the tip, found it closed and just dumped it anyway.

Phreerunner said...

Very interesting, Alan. Yes - two of the photos on this posting 'click' onto a blank page, whilst the one from Markus seems to 'click' into photoshop. I loaded them by dragging them from photoshop's browser then resizing them. It was easier than the 'blogger' uploading that I've always used in the past. I'll have to try it with web based pictures, but I would have thought you would need to make a link to the actual picture, and I've not seen a way to do that with blogger - but they are continuously updating their software...

And I'm not at all technically minded and have virtually no expertise with computers...

Luckily, that rubbish is at the far end of my 10 mile circuit, so there will be people much closer who I'm sure will have contacted the council. Your theory may well be correct, though the council may have wanted payment for the skip full of rubbish, and that may be the reason it was dumped.

Anonymous said...

Hello Martin :)

I'm just dropping a line to say what a pleasure it was to meet you and Sue tonight. I hope to be able to pick your brains re: the HRP, if you don't mind :)

Phreerunner said...

Hi Shirl
Yes, a very convivial evening, and good to meet you. We would of course be delighted to tell you more about the HRP. It's also on the list of 'blog projects'.
We hope to be in Southport in the not to distant future, so maybe we should bring our HRP box and meet up with you. Let us have your email address via 'Contact us' at www.topwalks.com.
Have fun.
Martin and Sue