Hand the litter louts back their rubbish!
I’M WITH Alice Arnold when it comes to litter louts (Mail). For some, the fear of humiliation is the only thing that will make them clean up their act. When I ran an art gallery in Fulham, I used to sweep the pavement outside each morning. It incensed me when cars slowing down on the approach to the nearby roundabout would throw cigarette packets and other detritus out of the window. I would smilingly pop their rubbish back through the window, saying: ‘Ooops, you nearly lost this.’ The look on their faces was a picture. Most, I hoped, would think twice in the future about littering. However, there are some people who appear unfazed by humiliation. I was once in a shop when a five-year-old threw an empty crisp packet on the floor. I told him to pick it up because an old lady might slip on it. He ran off in the direction of his mother in the next aisle shouting: ‘Mum, Mum, that lady told me to pick up my crisp packet.’ I expected to hear her reply: ‘What on earth were you doing throwing a crisp packet on the floor?’ Instead, she told her small child: ‘Go tell her to ****ing pick it up herself.’ The boy marched purposefully in my direction, but one look at my raised eyebrow was enough to make him turn tail. Would it make him think twice about throwing litter on the ground in future? Probably not. I have seen other children casually dropping empty sweet packets on the pavement, which makes me wonder if the rubbish that people eat has an influence on how they dispose of their rubbish. MARJORIE GREEN,
London N1. LIKE Alice Arnold, I didn’t think twice when I saw a woman throw an empty cigarette packet out of the passenger side door in a car parked opposite to where I worked. I rushed out of my office, picked up the packet and handed it back to her, saying: ‘I think you dropped this!’ She replied sarcastically: ‘Oh, thank you.’ My job was done and my anger abated. SHIRLEY ARCHIBALD,
Panfield, Essex.