The fly-dumping of unwanted rubbish is a big problem in my neighbourhood. The entrances to the park behind our house are a favourite place for people to leave mattresses, old toys and other waste.
Added to this are the cowboy builders who leave construction debris, as well as those who are paid to dispose of rubbish and simply find the easiest place to dump it.
Our local parks exist for the common good of the community. But fly-dumping is the embodiment of selfishness. In complete contrast are the volunteers who generously give time to pick litter in the park to make the space better for everyone.
Corporate versions
But another form of littering is also blight on my community, and its one backed by much more powerful forces.
In recent years there has been a dramatic rise in ‘dockless’ e-bikes and e-scooters and there are an estimated 30,000 in London alone. Unlike ‘Boris-bikes’, these do not need to be left in specific docking stations but are more flexible. Lime is the biggest e-bike company and now operate in 230 cities in the world.
Obstruction
But the flexibility of these dockless bikes is a double-edged sword because of where these bikes end up being left. I took the photos above at the end of our road on one day recently when 16 e-bikes were left strewn across the pavements within a few metres.
The obstruction that these bikes cause has created a nightmare for partially-sighted and blind people who have a whole new range of obstacles to avoid. Also, those who use wheelchairs, the elderly and those using push-chairs are increasingly finding pavements unpassable.
Aesthetic
As well as the practical problems, there is also aesthetics. Most people care about how their neighbourhood looks and feels – that our public spaces need a sense of order, that things need to be in their right place. Kester Brewin wrote this in his insightful book The Complex Christ:
‘What is defined as dirty or clean is not as straightforward as we think…the drinks can in the ploughed field is ‘litter’ – it is the dirty object – but if the can is on the supermarket shelf, not only is it clean, but any soil from that ploughed field would itself become the dirt. Dirt is not a fixed idea, but occurs when ‘matter is out of place’ and thus is created as a by-product of our deciding what the right place for things is.’
E-bikes are not intrinsically bad, but they need to kept in place. Too often at the moment they have become an expensive form of litter.
Legal powers
In many areas e-bikes can continue to be left anywhere, but around half the Local Authorities in London now have specific bays for e-bikes to be left in. But the level of fines for not leaving a bike in the designated zone is often only £2. Nickie Aitken, MP for the Cities of Westminster and London, says that complaints about e-bikes are the biggest single issue she is contacted about:
“Lime should be ashamed. Their bikes are causing havoc on the streets and pavements of Westminster. Their fines strategy is pathetic. Westminster council needs to get a serious grip of the situation and insist on tougher fines or confiscate the bikes and fine Lime directly.”
The common good
The arrival of e-bikes are an example of the colossal power of global corporations. Companies like Lime preach their mission in altruistic terms and states its values as safety, sustainability, innovation and community. But it is hard to take their eco-claims seriously when so many of their metal and plastic products are dumped in bushes and block pavements.
Of course, technological advances can serve and enhance community life, but only if the self-interest of these companies is held in check by our democratic institutions.
There needs to be more regulation and more control of companies like Lime to ensure they operate for the common good. At the moment, the freedom and flexibility of dockless e-bikes is only freedom and flexibility for some. We need to ensure our public spaces remain places for everyone.
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“The arrival of e-bikes are an example of the colossal power of global corporations.” Or maybe an example of people wanting uber convenience without having to own and look after something themselves or even park it with others in mind. When I was young, bikes did not clutter the sidewalk because they were owned, not rented, so people cared about their own property and this meant not parking them where they might be bashed into or bowled over.
Corporations are a form for organising people to get together to provide goods or services to other people. Of course, I agree that people in a corporation should have some responsibility for the product they make available. But the people who use the product also have a responsibility for how they use the product.
You are one of the best writers I know who has been brave enough to argue that responsibility for bad things happening rarely lies in just one place, and that it is all too easy, but rarely right or that illuminating, to point your finger at others – particularly ‘faceless’ others – the state, global corporations etc – and say it is all their fault.
Lime are not forcing people to disregard others by discarding Lime Bikes all over the place. And if we now live in communities where people will only bear others in mind if they face a real threat of being fined (higher) for how they park things, I thought the point you were then going to go on to make was that that doesn’t say much for our sense of community, rather than that doesn’t say much about Lime Bikes and it’s all the fault of ‘global corporations’. If the people parking their Lime Bike don’t care what their own community looks like, why should Lime?
As ever though there is lots of wisdom in your thoughts. One additional point I would add on the ‘dirty or clean’ point is that there can be big cultural differences here which make it especially hard for a community in multi-cultural London to adhere to one vision of what is or is not ‘littering’; if you asked an Austrian, an Argentinian, and an Angolan where is the border of acceptability between a dirty/clean parking of a Lime Bike, indeed if such a thing even exists, you would almost certainly get three quite different answers (and likely a raised eyebrow or two). London’s a very diverse place and the ‘parking’ of Lime Bikes is testament to that.
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Thanks Jonathan for your positivity and especially your critique! I agree its not good to lazily blame ‘the government’ or ‘global institutions’ but I think there is something inherently individualistic and dysfunctional about a product which can be left anywhere. It does not take into account human sin and our tendencies to be selfish and stupid. (I perhaps should have included this more in the post but I left it on the cutting room floor.)
Trains and tubes have ticket barriers and inspectors because of our tendencies to steal, want things for free and promote our own needs above the collective. The very concept of being able to leave a bike anywhere does not take these forms of human nature into account. People will leave them where they can be bothered to leave them – they will allow them to block people driveways and block pavements, and non-using people will casually tip one over and see the domino effect just for fun.
This is the kind of behaviour humans go in for. And our public institutions need to guard against it because of the impact on the common good. This is why this post calls for greater regulation rather than better personal conduct because I am talking about the behaviour of a big company who need to be pressured to change their policies. When it comes to regular fly-tipping, I am right back with you on the personal conduct point!
And when it comes to different perspectives on what is dirty and clean, this is where we need to get a sensible consensus. I think a specific docking bay is hardly culturally insensitive – but perhaps that just my Germanic-British imperial mindset speaking!!
thanks as ever for reading and commenting!
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