March 26, 2025 • 19 mins
Exciting News! Welcome to Series Two of the Challenge to Change podcast, now part of the Cheshire East family! In our first episode, I chat with Kevin Kearney about the impact of vapes and batteries on our countryside and the problems that occur when they are incorrectly placed in household bins. #ChallengeToChange #CheshireEast #Podcast #Environment #Sustainability
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
So welcome to a new series ofthe Challenge to Change podcast.
The Challenge to Change podcast isnow part of the Cheshire East family.
So I really hope you will enjoy thisfirst episode of the new series.
Thank you so much for takingtime to listen or watch.
(00:32):
If you are watching on YouTube,let's get into the podcast episode.
Welcome to this episode of TheChallenge to Change podcast.
I am here with Kevin Kearney,who is, uh, if I pronounced your
surname correctly there, Kevin.
That's good.
That's good.
So, um, Kevin is one of the wonderfulvolunteers that we are very fortunate
(00:53):
to have, um, helping to spreadthose important messages about waste
reduction and helping planet Earth.
And today we are gonna be talking aboutbatteries and vapes, so welcome, Kevin.
Welcome.
Thank you.
So what, so what, what kind ofinformation do you wanna talk about
(01:14):
when we're thinking about batteries?
What's those importantmessages that you wanna share?
Well, the, um, I, I start this offby calling them zombie batteries.
Mm-hmm.
And, and my train of thought started,well, lockdown was the, the, the main
thing we, me, wife and myself did alot of litter picking, and we still do.
(01:35):
And I came across.
A tremendous amount of thesethrown into the grass verge at one
stage to pick six up in one day.
Yeah.
And then, because I'm inquisitive, Istarted to take it apart, pulled it apart,
and they have a, a very, very small wire.
The, the power leads to the vape itself.
(01:57):
The vapes are exhausted and,uh, thi this wire, um, it
becomes, if it shorts out, which.
One of them did.
My wife touched it, andit burnt, burnt her skin.
So my thinking was, well, if thevape's no good, it's all, all the
(02:18):
puffs have been used out of it.
Mm. What happens to them?
And the batteries?
This, this one I picked up quite recently.
Right.
And it was a, a big one.
I don't know whether it wasa recyclable one or not.
Um, or a reusable one.
Sorry.
Yeah.
A 3.7 volt battery.
And when I tested it, which Iuse this gadget quite often.
(02:42):
Yeah.
In inexpensive off the internet.
Yeah.
And it had a full charge.
It had a 3.7 kick.
So potentially that would, it would makeme jump, uh, and as I say it, it it, the
wires, if they, they touch each other.
They, uh, they're like anold fashioned electric fire.
(03:05):
The, the, that becomes resistantand that becomes very hot.
Anyway, that's the techy stuff.
Yeah.
These, these are now, uh,recycled, uh, not recyclable.
These are disposable vapes.
Disposable, yeah.
Yeah.
And that is in, in essence.
What this is about, disposableas in where do I dispose of this?
(03:28):
Now, I'm led to believe from a lady inMorrison's that after July this year,
you won't be able to buy these anymore.
You have to buy the reusable ones.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All supermarkets and all outletsthat sell these gadgets have an
obligation to take them back in.
(03:50):
I don't know.
I've done a bit of researchon the internet and um, there
are, this is staggering.
360 million of these aresold each year in Britain.
That is staggering.
360 million and that's just in Britain.
That's incredible, isn't it?
(04:11):
That's in the Four Nations of Britainand there are 1 million a day discarded.
So, wow.
I, I don't know what percentage I, I,I, I, I've looked, but I, I couldn't
sort of drill down and get the figureof how many are picked up in shops, vape
shops, supermarkets, and then recycled.
(04:31):
Yeah.
But 1 million a day.
My, a friend of mine, a neighbor,she's, she works in the local
school and she said, oh, I canget as many of them as you want.
Lot of children use them, and sadlythat's not good, but there you go.
Yeah.
Yeah . So they're thrown awayor recycle 1 million a day.
So as I say, and if you consider,if you throw them away, if you
(04:57):
put 'em in a what, um, a dust bin.
Mm-hmm.
Which is if, if you responsible, whatyou do with them, well, you take them
back to where you bought 'em from.
If you are not responsible orsemi responsible, you put 'em
in the dust bin and then itbecomes somebody else's problem.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Okay.
A dustbin lorry collects your rubbish.
(05:17):
I'm talking about the generalrubbish and general rubbish.
Yeah.
There are all manner of things thatgo in in a, in a, a waste lorry.
Yeah.
And if you put these in or these fellas,very common aas, and they, because
(05:38):
they're open-ended, they can short.
And, um, it doesn't take a lotto start a fire in the lorry.
I, I've looking at some, um, videoson, uh, YouTube about, um, bin lorries.
I, I know for a fact that last year in2024, Cheshire East lost two bin lorries.
(06:00):
Mm. And if you look, youare talking about, um, where
did, I wrote it down here.
They cost a quarter ofa million pounds each.
Now I know they're insured.
Yeah.
But when Cheshire East lose them andthey lost two last year, they have
to hire trucks in to replace them.
And I found that staggering.
(06:20):
Um, the, the normal, uh, bin lorrywill last for about nine to 10 years.
'cause they, they do a hefty job.
They, they're out and about.
So the, the, the other aspectagain I hadn't thought about
was the safety of the crew.
Yeah.
If, if they're driving, if they'redriving a bin lorry and in the backs
(06:40):
a nice fire cook in a way mm-hmm.
They've got a flow air going throughas they're moving down the road.
And if, um, you know, if thebin lorry goes on fire, they've
gotta abandon ship quick.
You've got the general public, you'vegot all sorts of chemicals and.
You know, going in, in a a l you'vegot plastics, you've got basic
(07:01):
waste, and you know, to, you can gettoxic fumes very quickly out of them.
So it's, it's one of them a message thatI'd say when if, if I go out and talk
to people, I always say, don't do it.
Don't do it.
There are plenty of facilities torecycle batteries and these vapes.
(07:26):
I dunno whether we can see this.
Uh, there, there we go.
There.
Yeah.
I can see that's our little, ourlittle collection of batteries.
Mm-hmm.
Um, which we take to the supermarket.
Um, they are, as I say, they're deadto us, but if you test them with
this gadget, you'll find they'vestill got life in them, which
(07:48):
indicates that they're not dead.
They're no longer useful to do, you know,to, uh, work your alarm clock or Yeah.
torch whatever.
They're not for purposeanymore kind of thing.
That's correct.
But they've still got that,you know, some charge in them.
Yeah.
Correct.
So you've got AAs, AAAs, andthen I've got a hearing aid
(08:11):
and I use these little fellas.
And I'll use one of themevery nine, 10 days.
I couldn't tell you how often, andthey, they can all be recycled Now,
the, the, um, the chemicals insidethem can be recycled and reused.
The, the, the process, I, I don'tknow what happens to them, but
(08:33):
they are responsibly, sorted out.
Now an interesting fact, uh, nobodyactually knows how many of these.
Sold or, or made each year?
Uh, again, I've done alittle bit of digging.
Yeah.
Batteries.
The average person uses21 of these a year.
(08:53):
Now that's the average.
So some people use it a lot more.
Some are using a lot less.
Yeah.
Again, I don't know how many,but we estimate, we throw six,
600 million away each year.
So six, 600 million are thrownaway each year, uh, and from shops,
(09:19):
supermarkets, and et cetera, they,they recycle about 20 million.
So you've got a shortfall of 400million that probably go in rubbish
bins, or as I see quite often,are thrown on the roadside or into
the road and squashed in the road.
(09:41):
One of my gripes is technology'sbrilliant, but the worst thing we've
ever put on a car is an electric window.
Yes.
Because it takes no effort to press abutton and discard your McDonald's or your
Kentucky's or whatever, or your batteries,whereas in the old days sound like I need
(10:02):
to get a violin out you and start playing.
You used to have to wind the wind down sothere was effort in throwing rubbish away.
Now there's no effort.
And, and you can see it'sone of them strange things.
If you litter pick on a regular basis,you actually get to know people's habits.
(10:23):
Mr. Red Bull Man wouldthrow five cans away a week.
Uh, and I used to say, red Bull givesyou strength, but it don't give you
strength enough to recycle the can.
And that was my, uh, but it is incredible.
Another fact, here we go.
Do you know what's the most commoncolor of rubbish that you pick up?
(10:46):
I don't.
One.
What is that?
It's Cadbury's blue.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Yeah.
Because Cadbury's paint in that color,and it's the most common pick item
that you pick up is discarded snack.
Anyway, uh, so.
I've talked about vapes.
Did I say 360 million each year?
(11:08):
And Yes, I did.
And we throw away a million.
Yeah.
So it's a striking figure, isn't it?
You know, it really is.
One, one little fact that I wouldleave you with, with these aas, we, we
don't know how many are made each yearbecause obviously they're made in China
and they're made all over the world.
Yeah.
But somebody has calculated,and I don't know how you
(11:31):
calculate it, but if you laid.
Every battery that's usedin the UK end to end, right.
It would go to Australia and back,which is something like, uh, awfully
long way, 16,000 miles of batteries.
Wow.
(11:52):
Yeah.
Basically visual, isn't it?
That if you That's right.
Even if you even can picture it, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's one of these,you say go to the moon or back.
I mean, Australia's an awful long way.
Mm-hmm.
And it'd take you a long time tofly there and back, but that's,
if you lay these end to end, otherbrands are available, by the way.
(12:16):
Of course, of course.
But yeah, I mean, it, it is,it is startling, I think.
So what you were saying about,you know, obviously people, you
know, they're dropping litter.
Do you think with people it's sort of.
Once they've kind of dealt withwhatever it is, when they've eaten
their food, they've used the battery,they've used the vape, they're kind of
like, well, that's done, and that, andthat's just kind of off their radar.
(12:36):
Then they're kind of not, perhaps peopleare just sort of not thinking, well, it's
not my problem now I've done Absolutely.
Absolutely there.
There's a perception alwaysthat somebody will pick it up,
somebody will deal with it.
Normally it falls the council.
Uh, and we're so used to bins beingemptied and litter being picked up.
(12:59):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's appalling.
It, it, it's mind boggling to seethe rubbish that's thrown out.
Yeah.
Yesterday my wife and myself wentto Buxton to see our son who lives
up there and we stopped on theway to have a drink and a lay-by.
In the Peak National Park, andthere aren't many places in Britain
(13:20):
that are as beautiful as as nature.
There were lap wings in the field.
There was sheep lambs running about.
Yeah.
And we stopped.
Margaret looked out the window vape.
Yeah.
And I got out, I, I gotout the car, I walked down.
Some kid or some personhad eaten all there.
(13:43):
Party mix of sweet sugary snack.
They, they threw it, theythrew it onto the grass verge.
There was lots of other stuff there,but I hadn't got, I hadn't got my
gloves and hadn't got a bag, but it,it, it's a who, who cleans it up.
Is there a, is there a vape fairy?
Is there, or is there The other,my, my other favorite subject,
which I'm sure you've done plentyof videos, are, are poo fairies.
(14:06):
Yeah.
Do you know when they hang theChristmas tree, they hang them
in the trees, the dog food bags.
I have seen that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You pick several who, who, youknow that, that, that will sit
in a grass verge for a thousandyears and it will never break down.
Yeah.
You'll sit there and neverbreak down and, and, you know.
(14:31):
What sort of person would do thatto the, the, the Irish have a, a
saying, the last time I was overthere and it says where Litter lies,
beauty dies and, and, you know, yeah.
I couldn't, I couldn't agreemore the Yeah, people, that's
the powerful phrase, isn't it?
(14:52):
It really is.
Well, it's.
People stop and say,you're doing a good job.
Why'd you do it?
And you say, well, nature can't do it.
Nature can't pick these things up.
They can't deal with it.
If an animal ingests that, it'dprobably kill 'em a, a sheep or a cow.
I mean, why would they?
But you never know.
(15:12):
And, and who can pick these things up?
It's only us.
We throw them out.
Yeah.
The, do you know, an an interesting fact.
See, we live by nature.
We live by plastic.
We've got plastics everywhere.
And yet there was a program on thetelevision the other week where they were
talking to two guys in London start makinga new type of plastic that's made from it.
(15:35):
It it, it's biodegradable,it, it disappears.
And he, one of 'em said, youknow, it was made in East London.
And he said, this is whereplastic was invented.
And it was only inventeda hundred years ago.
Wow.
And I was staggered.
Staggered to think a hundred years,and yet we're surrounded by this
(15:55):
stuff then some of it's good,don't get me wrong, of course's.
Good.
You know, it's, it is durable,you know, it's useful.
Yeah.
But it's just how we, you know,discarded how we discard it.
We have to think about, as human beings,we've gotta think about sustainability.
We've gotta about the.
I'm gonna shut up after this, but myneighbor said, please, please don't.
(16:19):
My neighbor said, single plastic is onlysingle plastic if you only use it once.
And it we, we use gusset bags when wemake soup and we make gusset bags, get
'em from home bargains and other places.
And we always used to putthe soup in, freeze it.
Take the soup out, wash thebag out, discard it now.
(16:44):
We wash 'em out and put 'emstraight in the freezer so you,
you don't get bacteria on 'em.
And we use them untilthey actually break down.
They're no longer any use, and youprobably get 10, 12 uses out of them.
So plastic isn't always a bad thing,but it's the way we dispose of it.
It's the way we dispose of it.
(17:04):
Yeah.
Unless you say the same withvapes, the same with batteries.
You know, the, you know,the, the materials.
That are involved in a vape, youknow, it, it does include plastic
as well as all the chemicals andother things that are in there.
Of course, there's the battery as well.
So it's sort of, I suppose it'sjust people having that kind of
(17:25):
awareness of we're just kind oftaking that responsibility and as
you say, there's so many options fordisposing of a vape, disposing of a
battery correctly, you know, properly.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course it's not putting it inyou, it's not putting it in your bin.
We don't want them in there becauseof all the things we don't, we
don't, we don't want them in the bin.
We definitely don't want'em in the countryside.
(17:47):
We definitely don't.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's, like I say, it's a tra atragedy, but people are, people, they pay
five quid for it and they think that'stheir responsibility to not, not the
responsibility to dispose of it properly.
So.
Yeah, it is a strange thing.
I think, like for me growing upas a child, my parents sort of
(18:08):
instilled that, you know, that sort ofimportant rule of not dropping litter.
Yeah.
Um, and so it's not something thatI, I don't think I've ever done it,
whether I did it briefly as a teenager.
'cause you were rebel alittle bit as a teenager.
I, I wonder if you know whetherwe're still those par, you know,
(18:29):
parents are still having thoseconversations with children.
I know, certainly I do with my daughter.
You know, she, she's very much awareof what her responsibilities are, so
I don't know, maybe, you know, I'm,I'm sure there are, and of course,
obviously, you know, we do, we dogo and talk to children in schools.
Yeah.
You know, talk.
Parents, which of course you of coursehelp with as your role as a volunteer.
(18:49):
We know we share those importantmessages, and I think lots of people
take them on board and lots ofpeople do want to do the right thing.
And of course, unfortunately, noteverybody wants to do the right thing.
Well, we, we, we always, we always gobehind the, well, everybody's busy.
Everybody's got a busylife and Absolutely.
(19:10):
Yeah.
So, yeah, so thank you so much,Kevin for talking to me today.
It's been reallyinteresting, really useful.
That was me, Hazel Leese- Dixontalking to one of our amazing
volunteers, Kevin Kearney.
So thank you so much to Kevinfor his time, and thank you
to everyone for listening.
So welcome to a new series ofthe Challenge to Change podcast.
The Challenge to Change podcast isnow part of the Cheshire East family.
So I really hope you will enjoy thisfirst episode of the new series.
Thank you so much for takingtime to listen or watch.
(00:32):
If you are watching on YouTube,let's get into the podcast episode.
Welcome to this episode of TheChallenge to Change podcast.
I am here with Kevin Kearney,who is, uh, if I pronounced your
surname correctly there, Kevin.
That's good.
That's good.
So, um, Kevin is one of the wonderfulvolunteers that we are very fortunate
(00:53):
to have, um, helping to spreadthose important messages about waste
reduction and helping planet Earth.
And today we are gonna be talking aboutbatteries and vapes, so welcome, Kevin.
Welcome.
Thank you.
So what, so what, what kind ofinformation do you wanna talk about
(01:14):
when we're thinking about batteries?
What's those importantmessages that you wanna share?
Well, the, um, I, I start this offby calling them zombie batteries.
Mm-hmm.
And, and my train of thought started,well, lockdown was the, the, the main
thing we, me, wife and myself did alot of litter picking, and we still do.
(01:35):
And I came across.
A tremendous amount of thesethrown into the grass verge at one
stage to pick six up in one day.
Yeah.
And then, because I'm inquisitive, Istarted to take it apart, pulled it apart,
and they have a, a very, very small wire.
The, the power leads to the vape itself.
(01:57):
The vapes are exhausted and,uh, thi this wire, um, it
becomes, if it shorts out, which.
One of them did.
My wife touched it, andit burnt, burnt her skin.
So my thinking was, well, if thevape's no good, it's all, all the
(02:18):
puffs have been used out of it.
Mm. What happens to them?
And the batteries?
This, this one I picked up quite recently.
Right.
And it was a, a big one.
I don't know whether it wasa recyclable one or not.
Um, or a reusable one.
Sorry.
Yeah.
A 3.7 volt battery.
And when I tested it, which Iuse this gadget quite often.
(02:42):
Yeah.
In inexpensive off the internet.
Yeah.
And it had a full charge.
It had a 3.7 kick.
So potentially that would, it would makeme jump, uh, and as I say it, it it, the
wires, if they, they touch each other.
They, uh, they're like anold fashioned electric fire.
(03:05):
The, the, that becomes resistantand that becomes very hot.
Anyway, that's the techy stuff.
Yeah.
These, these are now, uh,recycled, uh, not recyclable.
These are disposable vapes.
Disposable, yeah.
Yeah.
And that is in, in essence.
What this is about, disposableas in where do I dispose of this?
(03:28):
Now, I'm led to believe from a lady inMorrison's that after July this year,
you won't be able to buy these anymore.
You have to buy the reusable ones.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All supermarkets and all outletsthat sell these gadgets have an
obligation to take them back in.
(03:50):
I don't know.
I've done a bit of researchon the internet and um, there
are, this is staggering.
360 million of these aresold each year in Britain.
That is staggering.
360 million and that's just in Britain.
That's incredible, isn't it?
(04:11):
That's in the Four Nations of Britainand there are 1 million a day discarded.
So, wow.
I, I don't know what percentage I, I,I, I, I've looked, but I, I couldn't
sort of drill down and get the figureof how many are picked up in shops, vape
shops, supermarkets, and then recycled.
(04:31):
Yeah.
But 1 million a day.
My, a friend of mine, a neighbor,she's, she works in the local
school and she said, oh, I canget as many of them as you want.
Lot of children use them, and sadlythat's not good, but there you go.
Yeah.
Yeah . So they're thrown awayor recycle 1 million a day.
So as I say, and if you consider,if you throw them away, if you
(04:57):
put 'em in a what, um, a dust bin.
Mm-hmm.
Which is if, if you responsible, whatyou do with them, well, you take them
back to where you bought 'em from.
If you are not responsible orsemi responsible, you put 'em
in the dust bin and then itbecomes somebody else's problem.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Okay.
A dustbin lorry collects your rubbish.
(05:17):
I'm talking about the generalrubbish and general rubbish.
Yeah.
There are all manner of things thatgo in in a, in a, a waste lorry.
Yeah.
And if you put these in or these fellas,very common aas, and they, because
(05:38):
they're open-ended, they can short.
And, um, it doesn't take a lotto start a fire in the lorry.
I, I've looking at some, um, videoson, uh, YouTube about, um, bin lorries.
I, I know for a fact that last year in2024, Cheshire East lost two bin lorries.
(06:00):
Mm. And if you look, youare talking about, um, where
did, I wrote it down here.
They cost a quarter ofa million pounds each.
Now I know they're insured.
Yeah.
But when Cheshire East lose them andthey lost two last year, they have
to hire trucks in to replace them.
And I found that staggering.
(06:20):
Um, the, the normal, uh, bin lorrywill last for about nine to 10 years.
'cause they, they do a hefty job.
They, they're out and about.
So the, the, the other aspectagain I hadn't thought about
was the safety of the crew.
Yeah.
If, if they're driving, if they'redriving a bin lorry and in the backs
(06:40):
a nice fire cook in a way mm-hmm.
They've got a flow air going throughas they're moving down the road.
And if, um, you know, if thebin lorry goes on fire, they've
gotta abandon ship quick.
You've got the general public, you'vegot all sorts of chemicals and.
You know, going in, in a a l you'vegot plastics, you've got basic
(07:01):
waste, and you know, to, you can gettoxic fumes very quickly out of them.
So it's, it's one of them a message thatI'd say when if, if I go out and talk
to people, I always say, don't do it.
Don't do it.
There are plenty of facilities torecycle batteries and these vapes.
(07:26):
I dunno whether we can see this.
Uh, there, there we go.
There.
Yeah.
I can see that's our little, ourlittle collection of batteries.
Mm-hmm.
Um, which we take to the supermarket.
Um, they are, as I say, they're deadto us, but if you test them with
this gadget, you'll find they'vestill got life in them, which
(07:48):
indicates that they're not dead.
They're no longer useful to do, you know,to, uh, work your alarm clock or Yeah.
torch whatever.
They're not for purposeanymore kind of thing.
That's correct.
But they've still got that,you know, some charge in them.
Yeah.
Correct.
So you've got AAs, AAAs, andthen I've got a hearing aid
(08:11):
and I use these little fellas.
And I'll use one of themevery nine, 10 days.
I couldn't tell you how often, andthey, they can all be recycled Now,
the, the, um, the chemicals insidethem can be recycled and reused.
The, the, the process, I, I don'tknow what happens to them, but
(08:33):
they are responsibly, sorted out.
Now an interesting fact, uh, nobodyactually knows how many of these.
Sold or, or made each year?
Uh, again, I've done alittle bit of digging.
Yeah.
Batteries.
The average person uses21 of these a year.
(08:53):
Now that's the average.
So some people use it a lot more.
Some are using a lot less.
Yeah.
Again, I don't know how many,but we estimate, we throw six,
600 million away each year.
So six, 600 million are thrownaway each year, uh, and from shops,
(09:19):
supermarkets, and et cetera, they,they recycle about 20 million.
So you've got a shortfall of 400million that probably go in rubbish
bins, or as I see quite often,are thrown on the roadside or into
the road and squashed in the road.
(09:41):
One of my gripes is technology'sbrilliant, but the worst thing we've
ever put on a car is an electric window.
Yes.
Because it takes no effort to press abutton and discard your McDonald's or your
Kentucky's or whatever, or your batteries,whereas in the old days sound like I need
(10:02):
to get a violin out you and start playing.
You used to have to wind the wind down sothere was effort in throwing rubbish away.
Now there's no effort.
And, and you can see it'sone of them strange things.
If you litter pick on a regular basis,you actually get to know people's habits.
(10:23):
Mr. Red Bull Man wouldthrow five cans away a week.
Uh, and I used to say, red Bull givesyou strength, but it don't give you
strength enough to recycle the can.
And that was my, uh, but it is incredible.
Another fact, here we go.
Do you know what's the most commoncolor of rubbish that you pick up?
(10:46):
I don't.
One.
What is that?
It's Cadbury's blue.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Yeah.
Because Cadbury's paint in that color,and it's the most common pick item
that you pick up is discarded snack.
Anyway, uh, so.
I've talked about vapes.
Did I say 360 million each year?
(11:08):
And Yes, I did.
And we throw away a million.
Yeah.
So it's a striking figure, isn't it?
You know, it really is.
One, one little fact that I wouldleave you with, with these aas, we, we
don't know how many are made each yearbecause obviously they're made in China
and they're made all over the world.
Yeah.
But somebody has calculated,and I don't know how you
(11:31):
calculate it, but if you laid.
Every battery that's usedin the UK end to end, right.
It would go to Australia and back,which is something like, uh, awfully
long way, 16,000 miles of batteries.
Wow.
(11:52):
Yeah.
Basically visual, isn't it?
That if you That's right.
Even if you even can picture it, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's one of these,you say go to the moon or back.
I mean, Australia's an awful long way.
Mm-hmm.
And it'd take you a long time tofly there and back, but that's,
if you lay these end to end, otherbrands are available, by the way.
(12:16):
Of course, of course.
But yeah, I mean, it, it is,it is startling, I think.
So what you were saying about,you know, obviously people, you
know, they're dropping litter.
Do you think with people it's sort of.
Once they've kind of dealt withwhatever it is, when they've eaten
their food, they've used the battery,they've used the vape, they're kind of
like, well, that's done, and that, andthat's just kind of off their radar.
(12:36):
Then they're kind of not, perhaps peopleare just sort of not thinking, well, it's
not my problem now I've done Absolutely.
Absolutely there.
There's a perception alwaysthat somebody will pick it up,
somebody will deal with it.
Normally it falls the council.
Uh, and we're so used to bins beingemptied and litter being picked up.
(12:59):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's appalling.
It, it, it's mind boggling to seethe rubbish that's thrown out.
Yeah.
Yesterday my wife and myself wentto Buxton to see our son who lives
up there and we stopped on theway to have a drink and a lay-by.
In the Peak National Park, andthere aren't many places in Britain
(13:20):
that are as beautiful as as nature.
There were lap wings in the field.
There was sheep lambs running about.
Yeah.
And we stopped.
Margaret looked out the window vape.
Yeah.
And I got out, I, I gotout the car, I walked down.
Some kid or some personhad eaten all there.
(13:43):
Party mix of sweet sugary snack.
They, they threw it, theythrew it onto the grass verge.
There was lots of other stuff there,but I hadn't got, I hadn't got my
gloves and hadn't got a bag, but it,it, it's a who, who cleans it up.
Is there a, is there a vape fairy?
Is there, or is there The other,my, my other favorite subject,
which I'm sure you've done plentyof videos, are, are poo fairies.
(14:06):
Yeah.
Do you know when they hang theChristmas tree, they hang them
in the trees, the dog food bags.
I have seen that too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You pick several who, who, youknow that, that, that will sit
in a grass verge for a thousandyears and it will never break down.
Yeah.
You'll sit there and neverbreak down and, and, you know.
(14:31):
What sort of person would do thatto the, the, the Irish have a, a
saying, the last time I was overthere and it says where Litter lies,
beauty dies and, and, you know, yeah.
I couldn't, I couldn't agreemore the Yeah, people, that's
the powerful phrase, isn't it?
(14:52):
It really is.
Well, it's.
People stop and say,you're doing a good job.
Why'd you do it?
And you say, well, nature can't do it.
Nature can't pick these things up.
They can't deal with it.
If an animal ingests that, it'dprobably kill 'em a, a sheep or a cow.
I mean, why would they?
But you never know.
(15:12):
And, and who can pick these things up?
It's only us.
We throw them out.
Yeah.
The, do you know, an an interesting fact.
See, we live by nature.
We live by plastic.
We've got plastics everywhere.
And yet there was a program on thetelevision the other week where they were
talking to two guys in London start makinga new type of plastic that's made from it.
(15:35):
It it, it's biodegradable,it, it disappears.
And he, one of 'em said, youknow, it was made in East London.
And he said, this is whereplastic was invented.
And it was only inventeda hundred years ago.
Wow.
And I was staggered.
Staggered to think a hundred years,and yet we're surrounded by this
(15:55):
stuff then some of it's good,don't get me wrong, of course's.
Good.
You know, it's, it is durable,you know, it's useful.
Yeah.
But it's just how we, you know,discarded how we discard it.
We have to think about, as human beings,we've gotta think about sustainability.
We've gotta about the.
I'm gonna shut up after this, but myneighbor said, please, please don't.
(16:19):
My neighbor said, single plastic is onlysingle plastic if you only use it once.
And it we, we use gusset bags when wemake soup and we make gusset bags, get
'em from home bargains and other places.
And we always used to putthe soup in, freeze it.
Take the soup out, wash thebag out, discard it now.
(16:44):
We wash 'em out and put 'emstraight in the freezer so you,
you don't get bacteria on 'em.
And we use them untilthey actually break down.
They're no longer any use, and youprobably get 10, 12 uses out of them.
So plastic isn't always a bad thing,but it's the way we dispose of it.
It's the way we dispose of it.
(17:04):
Yeah.
Unless you say the same withvapes, the same with batteries.
You know, the, you know,the, the materials.
That are involved in a vape, youknow, it, it does include plastic
as well as all the chemicals andother things that are in there.
Of course, there's the battery as well.
So it's sort of, I suppose it'sjust people having that kind of
(17:25):
awareness of we're just kind oftaking that responsibility and as
you say, there's so many options fordisposing of a vape, disposing of a
battery correctly, you know, properly.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course it's not putting it inyou, it's not putting it in your bin.
We don't want them in there becauseof all the things we don't, we
don't, we don't want them in the bin.
We definitely don't want'em in the countryside.
(17:47):
We definitely don't.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's, like I say, it's a tra atragedy, but people are, people, they pay
five quid for it and they think that'stheir responsibility to not, not the
responsibility to dispose of it properly.
So.
Yeah, it is a strange thing.
I think, like for me growing upas a child, my parents sort of
(18:08):
instilled that, you know, that sort ofimportant rule of not dropping litter.
Yeah.
Um, and so it's not something thatI, I don't think I've ever done it,
whether I did it briefly as a teenager.
'cause you were rebel alittle bit as a teenager.
I, I wonder if you know whetherwe're still those par, you know,
(18:29):
parents are still having thoseconversations with children.
I know, certainly I do with my daughter.
You know, she, she's very much awareof what her responsibilities are, so
I don't know, maybe, you know, I'm,I'm sure there are, and of course,
obviously, you know, we do, we dogo and talk to children in schools.
Yeah.
You know, talk.
Parents, which of course you of coursehelp with as your role as a volunteer.
(18:49):
We know we share those importantmessages, and I think lots of people
take them on board and lots ofpeople do want to do the right thing.
And of course, unfortunately, noteverybody wants to do the right thing.
Well, we, we, we always, we always gobehind the, well, everybody's busy.
Everybody's got a busylife and Absolutely.
(19:10):
Yeah.
So, yeah, so thank you so much,Kevin for talking to me today.
It's been reallyinteresting, really useful.
That was me, Hazel Leese- Dixontalking to one of our amazing
volunteers, Kevin Kearney.
So thank you so much to Kevinfor his time, and thank you
to everyone for listening.
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