I’m ashamed of the litter in this country
THE Oxfordshire countryside: green, pleasant and pristine. Or so you might think. But as I discovered yesterday, even the most supposedly idyllic corners of the British landscape are far from unsullied by litter.
After staying with a friend, we drove to Didcot Parkway Station down the A34. And I’m sorry to say the beautiful green fields that surrounded us were lined with a row of filth the whole way down the road.
It was shameful, enough to make even the most patriotic of us feel embarrassed at the state of our country.
So why are we turning into a nation of litterbugs? I spend quite a lot of time in Switzerland and in Italy where they just don’t drop litter. It’s simply not a thing that happens.
I’m very aware of litter – indeed, I’ve been an ambassador for Keep Britain Tidy for years. Believe it or not, it is the only job in my life I’ve ever applied for – all other roles I’ve just fallen into somehow. That’s how much I wanted it!
So I truly believe that The Great British Spring Clean, the Mail’s campaign to encourage us all to spring clean our streets, is incredibly important.
People should feel empowered, happy and secure within their community and having our streets litter-free is a very important part of that.
But to solve the problem we also need to identify the cause. And I have something of a hunch about litter.
What I’ve observed is that, fascinatingly, people won’t dump litter in a clean environment. But once one piece of rubbish is dropped, it starts a cascade because a crack has been opened.
Littering is incredibly catching. Where you see an overflowing bin, you don’t want to be the first person that drops litter next to it – but who cares about being the twentieth?
And it’s not just why we’re dropping it. It’s what we’re dropping. How many of us have seen fast food wrappers and takeaway boxes all over the road?
A lot of the litter I see where I live is dropped by people who have eaten or drank things they then feel embarrassed about consuming.
I believe it reveals a huge problem around litter and guilty eating. It’s very sad. People go and have a cheeky McDonald’s and get rid of the evidence. They don’t want to have it in the car and they don’t want to put it in the bin at home in case someone else sees it.
Why else would you chuck your McDonald’s wrappers out of the car, why? Why not take it home and put it in the bin at home? It’s not that hard.
Part of the reason for such compulsive littering must also be that people think the broader environmental issue is bigger than them, and their piece of rubbish. For example, a cigarette stub. How many smokers throw them into the road where, after it rains, it washes down the drain? Millions, I’d hazard.
But that drain eventually runs into the ocean. People somehow think that the litter in the ocean falls off ships. Reality check: no, it doesn’t. The vast majority at sea comes from nine major global cities, of which London is one.
SO many good things can come from the Mail’s spring- clean campaign. A burgeoning sense of national self-respect, for one. I am a tidy person, so I know I feel better, more contented, when things are clean and more organised. This feeling of peace could be spread around the country if we were all more observant about litter and picked up anything untoward off the streets.
There’s so much research and evidence – a lot of it done by Keep Britain Tidy – about people feeling better about their place of work, home or community if it is rubbish free.
Interestingly, other research has shown the elderly in particular feel more vulnerable in a littered environment.
On that note, it is shocking, too, that we are spending the best part of a billion pounds on litter when we have a social care crisis that looks only to get worse. We can’t afford to be so careless.
It’s not just about the elderly, of course. It’s vital young people are involved in The Great British Spring Clean. Indeed, it should be obligatory for schools to take pupils on a litter-pick once a term. My kids – I have sons aged 11 and 13, and stepsons 17 and 20 – love picking up litter. We do it regularly, mostly in Devon where I have a home near Honiton.
While all companies could do more to help packaging be easier to recycle, we as citizens must do more. As much as we’ve all embraced things like reusable coffee cups and bags for life, we shouldn’t forget the most basic rule of all for keeping our streets and countryside clean: take your rubbish home with you. It’s easy – yet oh-so effective.