It's just a huge rubbish dump

Litter in the North Laine
Photo reproduced with kind permission of www.imagesbrighton.com

The saddest thing I find about Brighton is the litter. One thing I hate is litter. I come from a village outside Milton Keynes where there was very, very little litter, but here it’s just a huge rubbish-dump. Even along the beach it’s the same, which I find very sad. It’s not soul-destroying, but it is a bit sad.

Spoilt by the laziness of others
I think Brighton is a beautiful place; that’s why I moved down here. There’s no excuse for it, no reason for it, it’s just the laziness of people who’d rather throw things away.  The litter strikes me more than anything else, probably because I’m new here and tend to walk around a lot. It’s pointless taking a car, because most of the places I want to cover are along the front. Because you go that much slower you can see a lot, so you can see the litter and it’s sad.

Moving to Brighton
Originally I’m from London – I’m a city boy at heart. A friend moved down here five years ago, and I spent many weekends with him and his girlfriend, and fell in love with the place. The opportunity came up to move down here when I took early retirement from the RAC so I thought well, why not? I’m divorced, so I’ve got nobody else to worry about. Now I live in Hove. I thoroughly enjoy the place – there’s so much to do, and the sea is only ten minutes away. I just wish they’d clear up the litter!

Comments about this page

  • Never thought I’d see a place as dirty as Glasgow where I am from, but actually Brighton is worse! Shocking – it totally spoils a superb place, visitors must be disgusted – the council has to get its finger out!

    By Soozie (07/05/2008)
  • I agree with above comments to a degree, but because Brighton is a victim of its own success, it brings many visitors to the town and unfortunately they bring, and throw, their rubbish in the streets. The local council do their best to clear up, but thay also have the disadvantage of the plague of seagulls to contend with as well, which create mess by tearing open rubbish bags left out for collection. I am a City taxi driver, so see the rubbish being thrown down – the council are on it most of the night at weekends, so come on be fair, try London if you think this bad!

    By Mr T Fair (07/08/2011)
  • We are doing a GCSE Citizenship project on litter in Brighton. My students are going to help clear up our community as there is a lot of litter about. The students admit themselves that although they drop a lot of litter they also see it as a problem. Their view is that its giving someone a job to clear it up.

    By Mr J Guiver (22/02/2012)
  • I can see very well what Luke and the other contributors are saying about litter. It is one of my pet hates. It is not only Brighton I am afraid, it is everywhere because people just cannot be bothered. I see kids every day walking along and discarding their sweet wrappers willy nilly and it infuriates me. The same with drinks cans, how annoying. When my kids were little they were taught to put the litter in a bin or bring it home. On many occasions when my wife did the washing she would first have to empty the kids pockets of wrappers and anything else, but it was never dumped on the street. My kids are in their 40s now and will never throw litter on the street. Where I live I just clean the litter up. No point in saying anything to anybody because there is a total lack of respect from litter droppers. There is a huge council run recycle facility near to me where you can take anything, so there is no excuse, but the fly dumpers still ply their trade. I am 100% behind the law and those that report litter bugs, the laws should be really hard on those that offend. There is just no excuse at all.

    By Mick Peirson (23/02/2012)
  • Actually statistics prove that adults litter as much as teenagers, its not right that teenagers are stereotyped when its a whole community problem, it should not be blamed just on young people.

    By James Spencer (01/03/2012)
  • I dislike driving behind someone and see them toss litter out the window…I feel like stopping picking up offending litter and toss it back in their window….but nowadays that would be foolish I know. I just wish fines were steeper for littering a place, Brighton appears to be a garbage dump and that is sad, very sad. Our parents taught us to place trash in bins.

    By Bonny Cother (11/08/2012)
  • I think the root of the problem is that councils are making it more and more difficult or expensive for people to dispose of their rubbish. i.e. no vans, no trailers, unreasonable charges, etc.

    By David Scott (11/08/2012)
  • The problem of litter dropping can be stemmed by the council by schools, families and tourism being made aware by a campaign of what litter does to our city in terms of the envirement, health and safety and cost to local taxpayers for cleaning up.

    By Charles Newport (15/02/2016)
  • So it is 2016 and if anything the litter situation in Brighton and Hove is worse. It has become the norm to walk through it. Any ideas please for a campaign to get the Council and residents and visitors on board for a clean up? What is Councillor Gill Mitchell doing about it?

    By Louise (01/11/2016)
  • Hi! its really nice the website covered something about littering. I arrived Brighton recently to study and really want to know about the situation of littering.

    By Steven Chan (28/10/2018)

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