All litter louts should be re-educated

LITTER-STREWN streets reduce everyone’s quality of life. There are few sights as off-putting as a town or village scarred with discarded bottles and plastic food trays.

Throwing litter down without looking for a litter bin is not a thoughtless act. People who do this know what they are doing. They just don’t care.

Failing to dispose of rubbish properly is a measure of decency. Some folk would just never do it. These decent people are the type who hold open doors for each other and who are naturally polite at all times.

If the Government is to take action by introducing a bottle-return refund scheme, or any other measure, then more power to its elbow. Anything that saves the taxpayer some of the £78 million spent on litter cleaning must be welcomed.

But it should also introduce effective laws to seek out and re-educate the people who cause the problem in the first place.

The solution seems simple: make those who create the problem fix the problem. The punishment for throwing litter down in the street should be to be made to pick up litter from the streets.

While they’re at it, they could scrape all the gobbets of chewing gum off the pavements too.