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Jamie


Posts: 987
Joined: Jan 2002
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 12.38hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
Yep - Hustler and others are correct.

> "Anyway, If I stop leaving my banana skins behind, my next logical step would
> be not to drive or cycle along the strip of tarmac that tore through another
> natural habitat to actually get to the mountains."


Sorry Ross, but your analogy is as nonsensical as your argument. I don't see how the presence of roads can be correlated to the casual dumping of banana skins. Primarily this is because no matter how out of place they might look, roads in remote mountain areas actually serve some purpose in their being there, and by travelling along them you are not forcing your own ideals onto that place. Dumping rubbish serves no purpose but to benefit yourself.

> "what honestly is the problem with [...] detritus [...] wedged between some
> peat and rock ?"

To your credit this causes less offense than just dumping it in plain view on a cairn or beside a path, as some people do. However, all this means is that you have actually gone to some effort to dump your rubbish, when you might just have easily have tucked it into your rucksack and taken it home.

I go to the hills for pleasure, and seeing discarded orange peel or banana skins does not do anything to add to the experience. It's just plain laziness - if you can carry it up the hill, then why can you not also carry it back down with you? I don't want to see it on our hills any more than I would want to see it dumped on my doorstep.

Our hills may not be the untouched wilderness that they are often made out to be, but my conception of them as such brings me a lot of happiness and contentment. You may not believe in such 'romantic' ideals, but I would kindly ask you to rethink your position out of respect for those who do.

Cheers
Jamie
h11lly


Posts: 2150
Joined: Dec 2002
Last Visited: 18:38
2nd Sep 2019
What's this?What's this?What's this?
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 12.57hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
Having access to the mountains by foot, bike, ski or car is a great privilege and one I certainly wouldn't want to stop using. A banana skin behind a rock may not be a problem in the empty Southern Uplands, but imagine if all the school kids that come up to stay at Badaguish put their standard packed lunch banana skin or orange peel behind a rock on the Glenmore/ Ryvoan/ Meall a Bhuchaille circuit. Our school alone has over 200 kids doing that circuit in the space of a fortnight in May.

Perhaps I'm feeling particularly sore about this point having gone up my favourite local hill ( Ord Hill all of 620 feet !) after work this week to find for the second time an orange peel in about 20 pieces littering the summit. I almost went to find a stick to scratch in the ground 'Take you B***** rubbish home' but managed to refrain from doing so ! I go up there to get the great view of Ben Wyvis over the west to An Teallach through the birch and pine trees growing up from the heather and grasses .... not discarded fruit skins!

I'm still pleased that the topic has been aired in the media and will hopefully have made a few converts to the
'If you carry something up, you should carry it back down.' brigade. smiling smiley



Helen
pfairbrother


Posts: 812
Joined: Nov 2003
Last Visited: 12:11
27th Nov 2017
What's this?What's this?
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 16.08hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
Leave nothing but foorprints and take only photographs.

smiling smiley
Paul

mtq1000


Posts: 596
Joined: Oct 2008
Last Visited: 18:19
15th Apr 2021
What's this?What's this?What's this?
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 16.39hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
I will second Paul on that one!


ColinTheCop


Posts: 525
Joined: Mar 2007
Last Visited: 18:44
16th Jul 2019
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 19.05hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
What about having a poo...?

Do I need to take that home as well.
naefearjustbeer


Posts: 1043
Joined: Apr 2007
Last Visited: 23:28
22nd Nov 2015
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 19.26hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
Wrap it up in your empty banana skin! Voila problem solved.

ColinTheCop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about having a poo...?
>
> Do I need to take that home as well.



moffatross


Posts: 1525
Joined: Mar 2006
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 19.42hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
OK, so whilst I have escalated my standing on WH to Public (and mountain) Enemy Number 1 and some posters are patting themselves on their respective backs with moral superiority sound bites in contrast to the decadence of moffatross' own damned soul, I've just a couple of things to add before I shut up on the subject.

Jamie wrote ..

"Sorry Ross, but your analogy is as nonsensical as your argument. I don't see how the presence of roads can be correlated to the casual dumping of banana skins. Primarily this is because no matter how out of place they might look, roads in remote mountain areas actually serve some purpose in their being there, and by travelling along them you are not forcing your own ideals onto that place. Dumping rubbish serves no purpose but to benefit yourself."

So far as I'm concerned, my OP wasn't about rubbish Jamie, it was about items grown by Mother Nature that I have as much moral right to let Mother Nature deal with as does a sheep leaving behind its turd. In my view, unlike the plastic bottles, sandwich wrappers and drinks cans that I sometimes find in the hills near to my own home which I will often carry back some miles to dump in my own wheeliebin, they're not rubbish and will ultimately only enrich the sparsely fertile ground that they eventually decay on. You won't change my view on the subject of these odd bits of fruit waste either and playing the moral high card is as nonsensical as your own rebuttal. I note from other posts and discussions that you're keen on your kit and I only raise the point because I'm curious to know where you're composting your old skis and boots ?

"Our hills may not be the untouched wilderness that they are often made out to be, but my conception of them as such brings me a lot of happiness and contentment. You may not believe in such 'romantic' ideals, but I would kindly ask you to rethink your position out of respect for those who do."

And that's just one of the many reasons why I'm pleased not to have to cycle, walk or run in heaving places like the Higlands when I can enjoy the hills around where I live all to myself without having to face these awful dilemmas. tongue sticking out smiley

Paul,

I ran in the Merrick Hill race today with 1,050 metres of climbing over about 10 miles of some of Scotland's most spectacular terrain. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, apart from us runners, making their way up and down the S. of Scotand's highest mountain were about half a dozen people. Sadly, we left rather too many footprints and I didn't take any photographs but you'll be happy to know that I didn't have any bananas in my backpack either. smiling smiley

Anyway, here's a final thought from the 'Last Chance to See' TV programme from Madagascar which is playing as I'm typing. This alerted me to the astonishing perversity of the vast numbers of trees that have been felled in the island's forest plains so as to plant and grow Sisal crops and produce biodegradeable packaging for The West !! My point is that we have our heads so far up our collective arses that we can't see the trees for the dried up woody matter. winking smiley




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 19.47hrs Sun 20 Sep 09 by moffatross.
Jamie


Posts: 987
Joined: Jan 2002
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 22.20hrs on Sun 20 Sep 09
> "So far as I'm concerned, my OP wasn't about rubbish Jamie, it was about
> items grown by Mother Nature that I have as much moral right to let Mother
> Nature deal with."


Curious to know how you define natural - I don't recall ever seeing a banana tree growing in Scotland at 2000ft.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 22.20hrs Sun 20 Sep 09 by Jamie.
Scomuir


Posts: 300
Joined: Sep 2004
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 08.33hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
So I take it you would be happy for everyone to do as you do then? Just because you generally walk hills that are quieter, that makes it OK to litter? That is essentially what you are advocating. If the hills that you walk were as busy as Ben Nevis, and people did as you did, ther would be quite a mess. Why don't you just carry it home? Put it on a compost heap, as others have suggested. If you were to drop the banana skin on a street in town, you could be fined (quite rightly). Why should it be OK to do it in the hills?

[www.scomuir.com]
moffatross


Posts: 1525
Joined: Mar 2006
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 09.27hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
When you need to take a leak and you're miles from the nearest loo, do you pee in a bottle and then take it home to pour on the compost ?

No ? Do you somehow think then that human urine is one of Nature's products that our mountains have evolved to deal with and that other people won't find yellow snow offensive ?

If you peed in the street, you could be arrested and quite rightly so. If everybody had your attitude to urinating outside, our mountains could end up smelling like urinals and sitting down for a rest would be a disgusting proposition.

OK, so you think I'm talking out of my behind because you think your pee is more acceptable than my fruit peel. Oh right, logic is at work then. sad smiley





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.29hrs Mon 21 Sep 09 by moffatross.
BoardWorkin


Posts: 169
Joined: Mar 2007
Last Visited: 20:19
6th Mar 2018
What's this?What's this?What's this?
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 09.34hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
A sound explanation given to me from the instructors at Glenmore Lodge was that leaving apple cores and bits of potential food on the mountains (especially the high ones like Cairngorm, where the flora and fauna have developed their niche for thousands of years and are very sensitive to changes) encourages other species in. Ravens and other scavengers are being encouraged into areas where they wouldn't have been able to stay, and the effects of this on the endogenous life is very bad - increased pressure and even increased predation by these incoming omnivores.

"If in doubt take it out!"

moffatross


Posts: 1525
Joined: Mar 2006
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 09.45hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
Thanks BoardWorkin, that's the only reply I've read that holds any logic whatsoever (aside from Ken's earlier point about some fruit peel being poisonous to grazing livestock). I will think about that when I eat my next banana in the hills although I still think that a skin tucked under some bracken in a forestry plantation ride does only good.

It's a pity that the JMT's, like most of the replies in this thread revolve around sound bites and right-on dudisms rather than logic.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.48hrs Mon 21 Sep 09 by moffatross.
Scomuir


Posts: 300
Joined: Sep 2004
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 10.00hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
moffatross,

I presume your response regarding peeing was in reply to me? I have to ask, as I don't recall mentioning that at all. Further to that, i don't recall comparing my pee to your fruit peel. Rather strange. You did mention something about logic in there, yet you seem to be displaying a lack of it yourself.

Maybe ironically, pee helps break down vegetable matter, so maybe we will all need too pee even more in the hills to aid the break down of banana skins and orange peel discarded by people like yourself.



[www.scomuir.com]
moffatross


Posts: 1525
Joined: Mar 2006
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 10.24hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
No you're right Scomuir, I was the first one to mention peeing but you were the first one to to compare dropping a banana skin in the street in the same context as letting it rot away somewhere in the wilds.

I obviously chose your pee because I'd already guessed that you (and most other people) think it is OK to leave it behind. You also suggest that Nature actually appreciates you leaving behind a pool of urine in the hills but not that it is a pollutant of water courses and that nor would it be offensive for another person (or creature) to find.




David Hosking


Posts: 35
Joined: Apr 2003
Last Visited: 11:13
29th Jun 2010
Re: Banana Skins
Date Posted: 11.09hrs on Mon 21 Sep 09
moffatross Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Doug, I struggle to make the logical connection
> between crisp packets, drinks cans, discarded
> pianos on the one side and discarded vegetable
> matter on the other.
>
> The mantra, 'carry something up, carry it back
> down' is sound but loses the point when it comes
> to discretely abandoned apple cores, orange
> peelings and babana skins etc (certainly down here
> in the Southern Uplands). It's a long time since I
> walked up Ben Nevis though so maybe I've missed
> the point and there is really an unsightly and
> dangerously slippery multi coloured carpet of
> aromatic fruit peel lining the routes from bottom
> to top. If there is, then I understand the JMT
> point and if (although it's unlikely) I ever
> bother to tramp up that particular torist trap
> again, I will bring my banana skins back down.
>
> In general though, I won't change my custom of
> offering my fruit peelings to the Earth wherever I
> go. Humanity is in danger of disappearing up its
> own backside if it needs to feel guilty about or
> believes it is possible to leave no trace of its
> own existence.

I disagree, the article was specifically talking about the summit of Ben Nevis, the average annual temperature on the summit is around about 0c, at this temperature anything will take a long while to decompose, I suspect Banana Skins and orange peel could take years. At this altitude everything should be taken down with you.


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