Opinions are going to be divided on this post I suspect, so if you are someone who doesn’t have an issue with piling stones or attaching padlocks to structures then perhaps scroll on by.
Some people find it therapeutic, meditative and/or artistic. But the flip side is that it can be damaging to the environment or the physical structures which are being altered in some way. We are fully self contained in our VW and we often wild camp which comes with a high degree of responsibility. We are firm believers in the ‘Leave no trace’ principles.
Derbyshire County Council will, this week, start the massive task of removing 40,000 padlocks from Bakewell Bridge to enable them to make repairs to it. They intend to redesign the bridge to make it more difficult to attach padlocks. We have seen ‘love locks’ on our travels in many places from Bakewell to Verona. Interestingly we saw a bridge in Aveiro in Portugal on our travels earlier this year with coloured ribbons adorning it.
The removal and threatened melting down of the padlocks sparked an outcry (BBC link) and thankfully another venue offered to accept and display the love locks. I’m sure the council didn’t come to the decision lightly knowing the negative reaction it would generate. But it really is an issue - a section of the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris collapsed in 2015 under the weight of over 700,000 padlocks. I quite like the Grand Canyon’s Facebook post which said "Love is strong, but not as strong as our bolt cutters."
Building piles from stones is an age old tradition used to create cairns for navigation but today its popularity seems less functional and more to do with social media trends. The negative effects include soil erosion and loss of microhabitats. A sign we saw on a Portuguese beach at Vila Nova de Milfontes this spring stated the “The fashion of piling stones damages the flora and fauna and mischaracterises the landscape. We all have the right to find the natural spaces as they should be”.
We watched a 4x4 drive onto Borsh Beach last night and fill a huge tub with pebbles from the shore. By the looks of the tyre tracks this is a regular occurrence. Hopefully they’ll have enough stones for their rockery, path or patio soon and can leave the rest as nature intended.
Carving initials into a tree or a monument is, in some ways, the worst example of environmental vandalism because the damage is permanent.
And don’t even get me started on litter. Across Europe, including the UK, the attitude towards littering seems to be getting worse. On our recent trip we’ve been saddened to see that in Turkey and Albania no thought is given to the disposal of rubbish and every roadside, beach and path is littered indiscriminately. It really saddens me and I don’t know how you even start to change the mindset of someone who thinks that is acceptable. These photos were taken at a beauty spot in Albania just past the ‘No Littering’ sign and within a few meters from a large rubbish bin.
“Take only photographs, leave only footprints”.
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