Gisburn Forest LITTER on Jump /Freeride Section

MTBmaniac

I'm just posting about the amount of litter on an unofficial Jump/Freeride section in Gisburn Forest. The bit I'm talking about is at the bottom of the long avenue in the trees not far from Hindley Head. The jumps feature on Youtube and the CycleJunkies website. Anyway, just as the track does a sharp right towards the final two jumps at the bottom of the avenue there seems to be a mass of plastic bottles and rubbish. Quite a lot of bottles have just been thrown over the wall. I was totally disgusted by the sheer volume of rubbish and I can't understand why people can't be bothered to take their rubbish home.

Something needs to be done about this as it makes the place look like a dump, gives mountain bikers a bad name and could risk groups being banned from building unofficial bits of track in the future if the relationship with the FC is damaged as a result.

Anonymous

Such are kids in jump areas. I know a number of places local to me that have the same problem. Swinley's got a few bits like that. Anywhere they can do jumps basically there's a load of litter.

They do sometimes try to put a bin bag out and that works a bit but then they also just leave bottles over the sides of the trail or stuffed into the trees.

Far worse are the adults though, such as dog walkers who don't clean up after their dogs, dog walkers who bag up the crap and stick the bag on a branch!, people who chuck rubbish out of their cars into the woods they're passing, and then bloody fly tippers who dump huge amounts on fire road access (not only annoying but dangerous if fire engine and/or ambulance needs to get in!). The latter are often businesses who don't want to pay up for the council tip.

cfbcfb

Deposits on bottles?

Works here in Finland, with recycling machines in supermarkets. You get a voucher back to spend in store. And guess what, virtually no litter.