Rubbish problem after snow’s melted

AS the snow melted, we expected to see the green shoots of spring. What’s stood out for me more though has been just how much litter there is around now.

On pretty much every major road out of Rossendale – be it into Burnley, Rochdale, Ramsbottom or Blackburn – the grass verges are populated by rubbish, clearly thrown from cars.

When did it become acceptable to just lob rubbish from your car? Answer: It never did, but I sense it’s becoming normal for a lot of people just to chuck out their rubbish as they go along.

It also feels as though fly-tipping is on the increase, be it rubbish bags piled up in lay-bys next to bins, or furniture dumped down country lanes around the area.

While I have no doubt the imposition of council charges for dumping certain sort of rubbish at local tips will have led some people to fly tip, it still makes the action of fly-tipping wrong, both legally and morally.

The basic principles of cleaning up after yourself, and leaving somewhere as you would expect to find it, continue to be taught in schools and by any self-respecting parent.

So why the mess we see now? Of course, it’s only thanks to the hard work of the local Civic Pride groups that things aren’t a whole lot worse.

Some people will, of course, blame council cuts for the increase in rubbish. The council picking up the rubbish was only ever a cure to a problem. Prevention is always much better – and that means not dropping the rubbish in the first place.

The question, of course, is how to get that message across to those who believe that once their rubbish is out of sight, it’s out of mind too.