Tour de trash

SIR – I enjoy watching the Tour de France on television each year, and am always impressed by the fitness of the competitors and the coverage of the countryside through which they ride.

What rather spoils my enjoyment is seeing the continual littering of the verges and hedgerows as the riders discard their empty plastic bottles and energy bar wrappings. Why don’t the organisers require participants to have a pouch in their kit for temporary storage of such rubbish? Tim Batho

Lytham St Annes, Lancashire