[Closed] Banana skins

I just find is astonishing that so many of you consider littering to be acceptable

Take your rubbish home and stick in the compost / recycling bin. Glass is only melted sand. Over the years it will erode back down. Is it acceptable to chuck bottles?

Take nothing but photos leave nothing but footprints is how we should all operate

Is this really so inconvenient to do? Really?

To be honest I'd be more worried about the spread of himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed. They cause far more loss / damage to habitats than the introduction of a few rotting banana skins.

I just find is astonishing that so many of you consider littering to be acceptable

I find it astonishing that some folks prefer to send it to landfill with all the resources attached to doing that

uplink - compost at home?

you may as well call skimming stones littering as I have moved them from one place to another.

You mad fool Junky, do you know how long those stones take to degrade? 😉

TJ thought you lived in a flat? How can you compost in a flat?

If some littering is acceptable such as banana skins then why not dog shit, horse shit,

Nowt wrong with poo as long as it's out of the way. I wouldn't pick dog poo up in the middle of a forest, put it that way!

---------------------

Still no facts on Banana skins altering soil composition Teej, just a random comment:

PP - its the potassium in them

So? Soil has potassium in it.

[i]However, even clay soils can become depleted in potassium where considerable quantities are removed in farm produce, eg. hay
and silage.
Potassium in the soil solution is subject to [b]leaching*[/b]. It is more readily leached than phosphorus, less so than
nitrate nitrogen.[/i]

So, reading that, THE best pace to chuck them is in a farmer's field!

*Leaching. Meaning it washes out. Areas like mountains where it [i]might[/i] change the soil composition will have a higer than average rainfall to wash it out.

I find discarded banana skins make an excellent emergency condom.

Haven't had a sheep tick in ages.

Rusty Spanner - Member
I find discarded banana skins make an excellent emergency condom.

Haven't had a sheep tick in ages.

😀 ❗

Thetford would look ace with the odd banana tree here & there.

Banana trees dotted around the countryside could be a snack source for ramblers and mountain bikers....!?

I'm joking, before anyone get on their high horse......

I'm joking, before anyone get on their high horse......

or Giraffe..

What about your pish? Should you take that home or are you ok to alter the ecology with it? I would bet lots of money you had taken a leak on your various highland adventures Teej 😉

Imho a "2 year" to degrade skin is preferable to a gel wrapper or similar. 1000 skins on the whole of Ben Nevis isn't going to change the ecosystem that much surely?

And also .. 2 years to degrade!! How come they go brown in the space of a ride when crammed in my Camelbak! 😀

Take nothing but photos leave nothing but footprints is how we should all operate

So we shouldnt really be even eating banana's?? should be left on the trees?

Maxray - If I took my [url= http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pish ]pish[/url] home I would need a trailer. I mean you must have seen the amount of pish I can generate 🙂

Seriously the MCofS now support a taking your poo home if bothying / wildcamping in many corcumstances

Yeah but us Englishers (obviously that includes Silicone Scots...) don't care what they say 😉

[i]Seriously the MCofS now support a taking your poo home if bothying / wildcamping in many corcumstances [/i]

I still think you;re missing the point most people are making TJ.

For most of us it's not about visiting some remote region of the uk that takes all day to reach, it's about mucking about in the woods on the outskirts of town or pootling around local lanes.

Most people seem to be able to grasp the difference between the two (those that proclaim they don't might be trying to wind you up, tbh).

I think you're missing the point. TJ has issued a diktat and we must blindly follow irrespective of relevance or common sense.

[i]TJ has issue a diktat[/i]

stw = Banana Republic now, then?

😉

wwaswas - and my point is that if its wrong in one place its wrong everywhere 🙂

I am against littering of any sort in any place. there is no difference - banana skins are unsightly, take a long tome to degrade and attract vermin.

Your argument is that some littering is acceptable depending on the place. So dumping rubble on a brownfield site is acceptable? How about plastic bags full of dog poo. I mean its an old railway after all not some pristine part of the countryside.

Either is is acceptable to litter or it is not.

Only in the world where everything is black or white and simple and only in your opinion. Mine differs.

FWIW, Cannock Chases 'Monkey Trail' is so called as the trailbuilders were lobbying loads of banana skins into the trees during its construction.

and my point is that if its wrong in one place its wrong everywhere

Now your just trolling.

So where do you draw the line then? Two extremes. Top of cairngorm - no banana skins. Woods behind nationwide swindon - banana skins are OK to chuck.

How do you draw a line? If its OK for one person to chuck them in one place then surely its right that everyone chucks them the whole time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

soma_rich - Member

and my point is that if its wrong in one place its wrong everywhere

Now your just trolling.

Really? 😈

OK, I've done some rough maths

It's hard to find out how much potassium is in a banana SKIN, but a banana typically had 450mg in it apparently. Lets be over cautious and say a skin has double the amount the fruit does (900mg) and then round it up for easy maths - 1000mg. One gram.

From my potassium factsheet I posted earlier, soils range from 0.5% - 4.0% potassium content

So, worst case, one banana skin has the same potassium content as 200g of soil.

But that's released over 2 years.......

Hardly earth shattering is it?

TJ - so if it's ok for me to have a dump in the toilet at home I can have a dump in the yoghurt aisle at Sainsburys?

Often, there are different rules for different places, not one rule for everywhere.

One adjusts ones behaviour to suit the circumstances, surely?

So where do you draw the line then?

oh shit i've been saving mine especially to dump on the mountainside 🙁

Hardly earth shattering is it?

Even if it was, it's not a problem that's going to be solved by composting it at home or putting it in to landfill rather than disposing of it while you're out and about.

I can feel the Edinburgh defence being prepared

😀

Read the post about pish 🙂

If I see an energy bar wrapper I pick it up and take it home.

If I see a banana skin I [i]might[/i] flick it in the hedge, I porbably wouldn't.

Am I going to hell?

TEEEEJJJ moaner
take a long tome to degrade and attract vermin.

We shouldn't really be eating bananas in the first place, should we?
Shipped over 1000's of miles, they probably do more damage from the delivery process, than chucking the skin into the undergrowth in the depths of Thetford Forest.

Most countryside has already been massively affected by human intervention anyway. If left to it's own devices, it wouldn't look anything like it does.
Everything we do has an impact - planting some crops, building a trail centre, digging a ditch, diverting a watercourse.

COMMON SENSE should allow us as human beings to work out whether it is acceptable to discard a fruit skin in a certain location without turning into eco-vandals.

Day off or late shift today TJ??

We shouldn't really be eating bananas in the first place, should we?
Shipped over 1000's of miles

bit like buying bicycles really

Hypothetical imperatives compel actions in given circumstances:

* if I wish to quench my thirst, I must drink something;
* if I wish to acquire knowledge, I must learn.

A categorical imperative, on the other hand, denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation:

You see the enetire world in the later form most of us see it in the former
So for example thoiugh shall not kill...well I agree with it but in self defence I would so it is not categorical
TBH it is quite hard to think of categoricals that apply all the time for most of us TJ

How far are the attracted vermin commuting for this snack? They are there allready and tbh if it attracted vermin it would decompose quicker would it not

stumpy01 - Member
We shouldn't really be eating bananas in the first place, should we?
Shipped over 1000's of miles, they probably do more damage from the delivery process, than chucking the skin into the undergrowth in the depths of Thetford Forest.

Most countryside has already been massively affected by human intervention anyway. If left to it's own devices, it wouldn't look anything like it does.
Everything we do has an impact - planting some crops, building a trail centre, digging a ditch, diverting a watercourse.

COMMON SENSE should allow us as human beings to work out whether it is acceptable to discard a fruit skin in a certain location without turning into eco-vandals.

Amen...

TJ I'm with you all the way on this. It's depressing to read that we share the country with those that don't really care for it. Our beautiful country is just a play area for many who have absolutely no respect for it and it's future.

How far are the attracted vermin commuting for this snack? They are there allready and tbh if it attracted vermin it would decompose quicker would it not

Our beautiful country is just a play area for many who have absolutely no respect for it and it's future.

I need some advice.

If I go wild camping for a few days, is it better to take 5-10 (depending on your anticipated dump rate) small turd sized plastic bags so they can be individually sealed, or one large bag eg. nice and strong garden refuse type, which can be opened and used as required?

The large bag obviously has the advantage of allowing 'direct' use and negates the need for post poo pick-up. Disadvantages are fairly self evident but principally centre around opening and releasing vapours when used and carrying around a large sack of shit which will not fit easily into a rucksack. Small bags can obviously be distributed around the myriad of zipped pockets found on most modern rucksacks.

Advice appreciated

uplink - Member
We shouldn't really be eating bananas in the first place, should we?
Shipped over 1000's of miles
bit like buying bicycles really

But bikes don't have skins, aren't edible and aren't GENERALLY disposed of around the country leading to an ecological disaster.

ACTUALLY, I found an edible bike.

[img] [/img]

No idea about its carbon footprint though, or whether it would cause an ecological disaster if dumped in the Cairngorns.

I've seen plenty of bikes dumped in the countryside.

Have a banana.

If banana skins are so bad for the local environment as they're 'not from round here' why on earth would anyone want to put them in the compost? Surely if it's going to ruin the local soil it'll do that to people's gardens too? My dad's compost bin has had plenty of banana skins from when they moved into the house (35 years) and it doesn't seem to have done any harm so how could the odd one here and there damage the soil?

I completely agree that littering is wrong but can't see the argument that the remains of any fruit thrown out of sight in the bushes can do anything but help the local environment. Really don't consider that to be littering.

GlitterGary - Member
I've seen plenty of bikes dumped in the countryside.

Was the local wildlife feasting on them??

MrsBouys family own a farm ooop North like, they've moocows and baasheeps dontchaknow.. Thay've a couple of footpaths that cross the Land (notice "the" Land not "thier" land, hahaha) and they hate it when walkertypes throw Narnas at the moocows. Seems something rather horrid happens when moocows eat said skins, poor moocows get all sicklike.
So last week we forraged a load of Apples and duely trimmed all the skins off to make Pies (hmmm Pies) and when they placed all the peel into bags ready to throw it away, in t'bin, I asked "why not feed it to the moocows?" [with a rather confused look] again seems like moocows have a dickytummy when chomping on Apple too..

So, not all natural stuff grownlike can/is eaten by animala. This is news to me as I thought (rather ignorantlike) that animal will indeed eat anything placed in front of them..

Shame they don;t have oinkpigs I said..

What about discarding TEA BAGS ?

Tea bags?

does your camelbak look like this;

[img] [/img]

No, there isn't a cheeseboard in that pic.

Well my source of all knowledge 'Google' reckons 3-5 weeks.

I'll keep on chuckin em in the bush.

Plus the mrs would kill me if our garden was over pottassium'd

The John Muir Trust said the skins could take [b]up to two years[/b] to biodegrade [b]in the cold temperatures on Ben Nevis[/b] in the Scottish Highlands.

They disappear pretty damn quick in a southern compost bin. Pretty much gone by the time the kitchen one gets emptied. Now Avocado stones take a bit longer.

bananas will grow in dorset. is it ok to discard them there?

i love a lunchbreak rant reading session

TJ - so if it's ok for me to have a dump in the toilet at home I can have a dump in the yoghurt aisle at Sainsburys?

pmsl 😆

Is horse shit still OK if the horses have been eating bananas?

What if it's a genetically modified horse?

Or banana?

As a result of this thread, I now plan to visit the Cairngorms, with a rucksack full of bananas, just so's I can throw the skins all over the place. 😀

(Wonders what sort of fossil-fuel-guzzling-planet-raping-polluting-environmentally-damaging vehicles most folk use to actually get anywhere near such an ecologically fragile environment....)

(Bogles)

And the solution....

[img] http://fullyarticulated.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d0baf53ef0120a68bdae7970c-pi [/img]

TandemJeremy - Member

So popular spots become littered with banana skins in the process of degrading.

I am astounded you guys cannot see this.

I literally cannot see this. Very occasionally you see a banana skin left right beside a shelter or popular stopping spot, but not the heaps that you suggest. Assuming you use the regulation "chuck it as far as you can in a random direction" approach then the density of banana skins even in the most popular spots will be low.

Fact is this is an island already shaped by man. If anyone's going to tell me off for altering the nature of a planted forest or field, or deforested sheep-infested hillside, I'm not going to take them very seriously at all.

I throw my banana skins into bushes, but not because I don't want them ending up on a landfill or because they will just decompose quickly and return into the earth. I do it because I can't be bothered to take them home.

Two Four Six Eight....

[img] [/img]

I do it because I can't be bothered to take them home.

😆

I regularly do this with old car batteries, fridges and sofas.

Well, saves cluttering up my pokkits.

As soon as a place looks littered it attracts more litter, so I always ensure banana skins are well hidden and decompose un-noticed.

Probably best just to landfill everything and to be on the safe side wrap it in a plastic carrier bag . . . . or 2.

Just in case like. Wouldn't want to cause any environmental disasters.

😯

"I regularly do this with old car batteries, fridges and sofas.Well, saves cluttering up my pokkits"

I`m not too keen on visiting the local shop and accepting plastic bags every visit.Most of the time its 3 or 4 items.. so yeah,you will often see me with a Frijj in my pocket.

Tonight I urinated by two tunnels.

Am I a bad person?

Lurid.