WHY I’M URGING MAIL READERS TO BE PART OF THIS BRILLIANT CAMPAIGN

EVERY day, I like to take a stroll through the beautiful country lanes that surround my New Forest home. That’s no surprise, you might think, for a passionate naturalist living in a glorious rural spot surrounded by nature and wildlife. But I have a special reason for my walks, and a faithful companion: a large rubbish bag.

I head out to gather the plastic bottles and rubbish scattered all over the verge and tangled in the hedgerow — thoughtlessly chucked there by people in passing cars.

This kind of littering persists all over the UK and the problem has been steadily getting worse. It is ruining our gorgeous countryside and open spaces, choking our parks and playgrounds, scarring our rivers and beaches, turning our cities into wastelands and slowly killing our wildlife.

After many years as a TV presenter, I’m a well-known figure — but I’m not too busy or too proud to pick up litter.

With this tiny, daily act of helping to keep our country clean, I know I’m not only removing an eyesore and recycling plastic that would otherwise moulder there for decades, but also protecting our native wildlife. Now I’m urging you to do the same. As a keen ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy, I wholeheartedly support the Mail’s Great Plastic Pick Up from May 11 to 13, when this paper is helping communities, schools, families and individuals across the UK to come together and clear litter from our beaches, beauty spots and streets.

It couldn’t be easier to join in, and the Mail will even provide you with free recyclable rubbish bags to sort your plastic waste. This represents a brilliant opportunity for us to clean up litter — specifically toxic plastic litter — from our environment.

You’ll be helping to halt a problem I am deeply worried about.

I’m lucky enough to travel to all corners of the country to research and film nature programmes, and the littering I have seen is shocking. It’s not just urban areas, bus stops, city centres and children’s play parks abused by loutish adults — litter finds its way into even the most remote rural areas. The verges beside roads and banks of railway lines are strewn with ugly detritus.

Paper and card will eventually decompose, but unless someone picks them up, plastic bottles, balloons and straws will just stay there for hundreds of years.

ThERE

can’t be anyone who hasn’t been saddened by the effect of discarded plastic trash on our oceans and sea life, brought to our attention by the Mail’s tireless campaign and David Attenborough’s Blue Planet series.

And the shocking fact is that 80 per cent of that toxic plastic is washed into the sea from the land. Every time it rains, lightweight plastics float off into storm drains and sewers and are then dumped in our rivers, which flow out to sea.

I’m not sure people fully appreciate that a bottle top dropped on a pavement in London or Manchester can so easily be washed into the English Channel, Irish Sea or Atlantic.

Buffeted by the salty water, it will break down into microscopic plastic particles that float around in the water for decades, poisoning our sea life, and ultimately poisoning us.

But it’s not just dolphins, sea birds and whales being killed by plastics — this flagrant disregard for nature kills animals on land as well.

It is something I witness every day right on my own doorstep.

The gateway to my house in the New Forest has become a popular lay-by for people who drive through from the nearby town. They stop at the end of my drive to empty their cars of the remains of their fast-food meal.

The branding on the packaging makes it plainly obvious which fast-food chain the trash has come from, and I am sorely tempted to take my sack back there and tip it out over the floor. I am sickened to see that these places use so much unnecessary packaging and I’m disgusted we live in a culture that appears to find it acceptable to throw your rubbish out of a car window.

But, instead, I grit my teeth and join my neighbours in picking up the rubbish these louts have thoughtlessly left behind.

I separate out whatever I can for recycling and I take what satisfaction I can from the fact that the tiny animals in my small stretch of hedgerow are safer.

Even a single crisp packet or one torn and deflated balloon can kill innocent creatures.

I was recently asked to produce a series of photographs that contrast the beauty of nature with the ugliness of litter. One image was of a hedgehog with a plastic beer holder stuck around its neck, which is a stark reminder of the dangers our native species face every day.

Shockingly, the RSPCA gets 14 calls a day about animals affected by litter. It says plastic bottles are the worst offenders, with one in eight containing a tiny dead animal. Some are packed with as many as seven.

have you ever heard of anything so appalling? That bottle chucked out of a car window could be responsible for ending

seven innocent lives. A study released last month showed that 3.2 million voles, shrews and mice die each year after they crawl into discarded bottles and cans and find they can’t escape. There they slowly starve. It is an awful, protracted and painful death.

You might not think you need to worry about a tiny field mouse. But its plight is indicative of the scourge that plastic litter presents to all wildlife, from wild flowers to insects that pollinate them, from small mammals to beautiful birds that could soon be made extinct.

DRIVING

through the countryside in years to come you might not miss a vole or two, but you may start to wonder why there are no more kestrels, which feed on them, hovering over the hedges.

Plastic bags are as bad as bottles for wildlife, and if an animal eats a plastic balloon, it can choke. It only takes seconds for a swan or deer to swallow one.

Other litter is also dangerous. A hedgehog looking for food could get its head trapped in a can or its throat lacerated on the sharp edges, too.

I know it can be tempting to rail at the authorities for not providing more bins or emptying them more frequently, but change won’t happen if we just leave it to them. Change has to come from us. We have to understand that small changes can make a huge difference.

Every single straw you say ‘no’ to, every crisp packet you pick up and take home to throw away, every plastic bottle you reuse or don’t use at all — it all adds up.

It’s no good waiting for someone else to do something. We have to do it ourselves — now.

By the time big businesses meet their self-imposed plastic reduction targets we could all be buried under the stuff.

I read one terrifying prediction that said unless steps are taken to manage plastic waste properly, by 2025 the ocean could contain one tonne of plastic for every three tonnes of fish.

That’s unthinkable. We all need to do our bit, and this campaign is a brilliant place to start. I urge you to earmark a couple of hours during The Great Plastic Pick Up to join or lead a community litter- clearing group. It is so simple, but it will be so effective.

Every bit of plastic we refuse, reuse, pick up or recycle will take us in the right direction.

So I’ll be joining the crew on the weekend of May 11 to 13 to do my bit to help protect wildlife on land and at sea. I look forward to seeing you there!