Lay-by litter bins always being full to overflowing

“They may appear to be overflowing but they are not full,” writes Environment Quotspotter, Derek Rubble. “Lay-by litter bins are an open invitation to target practice and what you are seeing on the ground all round it are all the bad shots. Most fall short,long, or wide of the mark and you can bet that what’s in the bin is but a fraction of what you are seeing strewn around it –  hardly surprising since much of it will have been lobbed from fast-moving cars. Very few deposits make it all the way into public litter bins generally ( except perhaps ‘ sensitive’ government documents which keep getting dumped in them with the same abandon that MOD computers keep getting left in the back of taxis ) . They  are more ‘target’  than ‘receptacle’ although their presence  does  help define the general area of the scatter-zone Our Quot research team devised the following experiment: we conducted a stakeout at a notorious town meeting point where youngsters tend to hang out at night to drink beer and eat pizzas and Kentucky fried chicken and where the litter bin does nothing to protect the environment from discarded cans, cartons and sauce sachets. We then had the council remove the bin and relocate it to a less attractive meeting place – in fact just outside a police station. The hang-out venue immediately followed the bin to its new location  and the litter-louting came with it  – proof that far from solving litter problems public bins actually cause them.”  

(Reece Cramp , Capstone) - QQQQ*