Fast food wrappers travel far and wide

AT one point the other weekend, it felt as though no-one round here had ever seen a McDonald’s before, such was the queue to get to the new drive-thru in Rawtenstall.

There have been many complaints about the location of the new fast food restaurant, not least because the access road involves a sharp turn off an already complicated roundabout and is sandwiched in a narrow gap between two other exits off the roundabout.

I visited this week, and found a real mix of people in there enjoying an early lunch.

The car park was clean, with someone on almost permanent patrol picking up litter.

As Rossendale’s council leaders are keen to point out, Rawtenstall has had significant investment in recent years, and the arrival of McDonald’s is one such example.

The local Civic Pride group, which campaigned vocally against McDonald’s on the grounds of the litter it would cause, had a very good point.

In some ways, it isn’t about the rubbish around the immediate site but on the roads further afield. I’ve visited once so far and have been impressed by how clean the site is and the effort being made to keep the surrounding area free of litter.

But on one walk I enjoy it’s not uncommon to see KFC wrappers in the hedges, despite our nearest KFC being a good five or six miles away. That’s the problem with encouraging people to eat fast food in their cars – the rubbish tends to travel, and sadly people can’t always be trusted to take it home with them. I hope those who use the new restaurant respect their local area and do what I think is a very simple act: put their own rubbish in the bin themselves.