Wasted chance to clean up our land
ON A coach trip with my WI group, we were stuck in a traffic jam on the M1 because one lane had been closed due to a fuel spillage. As we inched our way southbound, I gazed out of the window and what was there to see? Rubbish! Plastic, metal, paper, polystyrene, glass and lumps of concrete lay there forlorn and unwanted. I felt ashamed for our supposedly advanced culture. What happened to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign from the Seventies? I have travelled on the motorways of France and Germany and was amazed at how spotless they were. I know the public can’t wander up and down the verges with gloves, bin liners and a grabber, but someone must be responsible for removing this eyesore. It was obvious much of the waste had been there for a long time. Who is responsible for removing it and recycling it? How can we educate the people who scatter litter? We reached our destination after three and a half hours — a journey that should have taken under an hour. A morning gone to waste, in more ways than one.
MARGARET EDGE, Worksop, Notts. THE Keep Britain Tidy campaign had a strong effect on me as a child — I have never dropped litter. But the same does not apply to other people. Where does all the rubbish come from on motorway grass verges. I was shocked to be in a car with someone who threw litter out of the window into the gutter. I asked why he did it and he replied: ‘It keeps someone in a job.’ But councils no longer have the resources to clear up litter. There are no reminders about not dropping litter: no ‘Please do not drop litter’ signs, adverts on TV, radio or social media, billboards, or signs on the sides of buses. Young people need to be targeted about not dropping litter. Surely some of the money from the 5p supermarket plastic bags could be used for a hard-hitting campaign. Plastic breaks down and decays into tiny fibres that end up in the soil and rivers. We will end up drinking, eating and breathing plastic.
R. WALSH, Swindon, Wilts.