While cost and ease may be part of a solution, two fundamental words sum up the heart of the problem without which it will not go away; responsibility and respect.

Responsibility, because the change in mindset needed is to make all people understand that the refuse of our lives is our responsibility, not a council’s or neighbour’s or garden curator’s.

Respect because it is the absence of any kind of respect either for the place where rubbish is dumped or people who might use it that is the hallmark of ugly dumpers.  

Since the Don’t Rubbish Australia campaign almost 50 years ago the seismic shift in mindset took place with a underlying motivation if you are fond of something or proud of it, it is also you basic responsibility to take care of it.

The absence of hard rubbish collections, useful as they can be, is no excuse in itself for absolving all responsibility for the rubbish any more than wilful littering can be blamed on there being no rubbish bin in close proximity.

Many parts of Europe do not have recycled home pickups. They use local and neighbourhood rubbish stations where the residents sort out their rubbish from their recyclables, their plastic from their glass, their green glass from their clear and so on. 

Facilities and service are less, yet they deliver a better and cheaper result because the responsibility has been transferred back to the individual user.

This myopic fantasy of self-justification and infantile abnegation of responsibility has been used in the past and will go on being used by culprits but one might as well blame opp shops for refusing to take old mattresses to dump them in waterways. 

The National Parks have largely implemented a successful policy of no bins based on a “bring it in; pack it out” change in mindset  – the rubbish is your responsibility.

Increased vigilance and harsher penalties may be part of the solution but as this debate continues it is the change of mindset which will be the most critical.