A few years ago, a walk in the park would often reveal small discarded nitrous oxide gas canisters; my record find was 52 of them. Then their incidence started to decrease and they became a less common sight. Today however whilst on my early morning litter round, I came across 19 much larger canisters – each weighing 1.1 kg. Since 21 kg of “litter” was rather too much for me to remove, I left them there.
The cost of one such canister is around £22, or £418 for the whole lot. How might 22kg of such discarded metal get into the park? Was it a local restaurant – if so they must serve an awful lot of whipped cream! It seems unlikely that “recreational” use accounts for them – that much gas would certainly kill quite a few people. And how might one dispose of them, given that this size of compressed gas canister could be a dangerous object if eg incinerated? I will keep a watch out for this new form of fly-tipping!
I’m afraid these have become a common sight all over the Borough. LAGER Can’s record was a find of 144 of them on land adjacent to a primary school in Southall in July 2022. No deposit is charged on them so the user has nowhere and no incentive to return them. Please report to parks management.