This is littering

I am told that the estate where I work is reclaimed land, and I have no particular reason to doubt that, rusting remains of coffer dams are visible at the water's edge. The resultant land is low-lying and very, very flat – great for cycling to and from work. During the daytime the estate is as busy as a beehive with hundreds of people doing whatever they must to afford the lifestyle they live. A single twisty road snakes around all the business entrances and the tailbacks of single occupant cars combined with enormous trucks provide the commute of nightmares.

But at night-time the estate attracts a very different sort, I am told. Young adults, proud of their cars and keen to show them off to their peers, love to scream around the twisty windy awfully level road.

Despite the fact that the estate houses at least two huge waste management companies, and is therefore awash with vast garbage and recycling dumpsters, the boy racers prefer to chuck their stuff over the parapet wall onto the ribbon of wilderness between land and river. This is where I take my lunchtime break to stretch my eyes from the screens. I look across the water to the far side for the benefit of my eyes, but I cannot help but be distracted by the litter. It is anthropology and I cannot deny it.

MacDonald's wrappers feature significantly, as do high-sugar-high-caffeine drinks such as Monster and Lucozade. There is very little in the way of alcohol, and what there is is in tiny amounts and very sweet and fruity, suggesting to me that it is to keep bored girlfriends compliant.

There is also packaging from desperately cheap car accessories. And then there is the phenomenal amount of discarded nitrous oxide packaging. Perhaps this is to make car engines perform more enthusiastically, or to make the girls more giggly, but whatever its purpose, I doubt it is being used to enhance desserts with whipped cream, as is generally advertised.

In researching this blip I have learned that there is a difference between "Landfill" and "Land fill"