Big Brands are rubbish!

In the midst of one of Southampton’s longest ever Council worker disputes, and let’s be honest, at times it’s been easy to think that our fair city has twinned with Mumbai, Rio, Beirut, Tripoli and Dhaka, it’s interesting to do a passing analysis of life’s flotsam and jetsam as you wander along the city’s troubled and rubbish filled streets.

And what does that analysis tell you? Well, to begin with, there is a definite ‘scavenging bird’ hierarchy and that pigeons are coming off second best to herring gulls (that’s if the numbers of pigeon carcasses are anything to go by!).


But most importantly, it is that big brands pay little more than lip service to the impact their ‘wares’ have on the environment. In no particular order, Costa, Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway, and Dominos all dominate the rubbish tip that is now how the city looks. Precinct bins are overflowing and apartment’s front steps are festooned with shredded black bin liners containing an un-countable tonnage of fast food that plainly makes up a fairly significant part of inner city diets.

But my point is not a nutritional one. It is simply this. If these big brands are so visible at times like these, and for all the wrong reasons, why don’t they take some responsibility? Why not enter into the dispute to cover even a small fraction of the cost of disposing of their bags, packs, containers and cups? I think I read somewhere recently that McDonalds had entered into a dialogue with a local council (not Southampton) to support a recycling initiative, but that’s not enough!

Taking direct action to help resolve a dispute is a much more visible form of responsible participation in a community. SO, come on big brands; dig deep and help the city council sort this mess out.

You’d be helping the pigeons out as well!


Posted by Simon Dover