When out walking, I’ve noticed a lot of green garbage bags snagged on tree trunks and blowing in the wind. I was a little surprised, because for the most part, there is minimal litter on Orkney (still more than there should be, and I try to remember to take a bag to the beach to copy a few of the other beach walkers and pick up plastic bottles and beer cans when we’re out).
But I was walking along a different trail on the outskirts of Kirkwall last week, and I saw these trees. It looks like they were planted years ago – they must plant trees here with their root ball in a garbage bag, and then the tree just grows up out of it. So now, in my mind, the blowing bags are less awful. Still ugly, but at least it’s not some inconsiderate local pitching their garbage in amongst the trees because they can’t figure out the local trash collection.