This week the rubbish itself has gone walking: high winds caused several pieces to fly off and scatter themselves across the back garden. One piece even managed to be blown under the fence into our front garden, underscoring the fact that where litter is found is not necessarily where it started from. The board itself got blown over once as well, so a few pieces are looking a bit dented as a result. However, in general the weather isn’t doing much damage to the majority of the pieces.
The napkin continues to look quite bedraggled, which isn’t a surprise considering it has gotten soaked and blown around. It is tearing and a few small pieces have fallen off. I can’t imagine it surviving the month of January, but I will continue to watch it with interest … and to make sure it doesn’t go wandering again.
Sharp-eyed viewers will have noticed some changes to the cups, with the lids now being nailed on the board separately. As I mentioned last week, the cups have swelled with moisture, which prevents the lids from fitting properly. This is probably one reason cups and lids aren’t always found together: the lid falls off and is then blown elsewhere. The multiplier effect from this is concerning: one coffee cup easily becomes two pieces of rubbish, a fast food cup three stray pieces with the straw.
Other changes include the deflation of the yellow balloon, but everything else, especially the plastic, remains more or less as is. Indeed, the most damage that has occurred to the plastic is due to a combination of the board falling over and me hammering more nails into everything in an attempt to prevent rubbish from getting ripped off by the wind!
