The scourge of Scotland

SOMETHING big is starting to happen across the country. It’s long overdue – and something that Keep Scotland Beautiful has been campaigning on for years.

We are, at last, starting to see meaningful attention paid to the amount of litter that is plaguing our roads, towns and rivers.

It seems those we require to take action have acknowledged that it is no longer acceptable to have their heads in the sand.

Thanks, in no small part, to the Daily Mail and its readers, our politicians and industry are being challenged to end this shocking and unsustainable blight.

Sir David Attenborough has had a big part to play too. The conclusion to his Blue Planet series was jaw-droppingly shocking to all who viewed it. He clearly demonstrated what we have known for a while, that the scale of our misuse of resources is having a shocking impact on our seas.

Huge islands of plastic blown around is an appalling testament to our waste of resources – and our carelessness in disposing of them. A nation, and a world, which assumed that dropping a drink can or bottle was somehow invisible has been confronted with the global impact of that irresponsibility. We owe the programme makers a debt of gratitude for the wake-up call.

The truth is that waste is not slopping around in mid-ocean due to someone else’s actions.

Generally, litter that ends up in the oceans starts as litter in our communities, a significant share of it being plastic bottles and cans blowing from our streets and roads into rivers, canals and lochs and eventually finding its way to sea.

Collectively, we must recognise we can no longer hide from the end consequences of littering when we think no one else is watching. Frankly, now the world is watching, that should spur us all on to action, every single one of us.

For more than half a century, Keep Scotland Beautiful has worked to raise awareness of litter and the wider impacts it has on society.

We’ve battled against our increasing throwaway culture, budget cuts and lethargy for tackling the issue. We’ve also drawn attention to the annual clean-up costs, estimated to exceed £1million a week in Scotland. And that is before we even consider the unsustainable consumption that is eating up the world’s natural resources.

Decline

As the Mail reveals today, Keep Scotland Beautiful has identified the sheer scale of the problem. Our streets and green spaces are more littered this year than last. The past two years have seen a huge decline in standards of cleanliness, particularly in our most deprived communities.

Our roadside litter campaign, in which we have been joined by road operators, councils, motoring bodies and industry, has found more than 70 per cent of roads are littered with plastic drinks items and fast food packaging in vast numbers. Simply put, too many assume they can tidy their vehicle by chucking their litter out of the window. How many of us have seen that?

In recent months, we have seen increased interest from the Scottish Government, industry and individuals in taking real action to solve our litter problem.

Something big is happening – from political action being proposed to ban many single-use items, such as straws, cotton buds, cups and drinks containers, to industry investing in national litter campaigns and to the people of Scotland cleaning up the country in increased numbers – up 30 per cent since this time last year.

This is clearly a step in the right direction, but we have a long way to go.

There is no doubt we need to capitalise on these changes. We need much more action from all sectors – government, industry and individuals – if we are really to address our growing litter problem.

The Scottish Government has a great opportunity to make improved links between increasing litter levels on land and its impact at sea. Greater alignment between Scotland’s five-year National Litter Strategy and the Marine Litter Plan would surely make sense. After all, they are both focused on litter prevention and behaviour change.

The need for review and action is so urgent that we must back these strategies up with meaningful resources to help deliver them, rather than just talk about them.

It is also time that producers – those who manufacture the bottles and cans, the products and packaging to meet our on-the-go lifestyle – got their act together.

All over the world, producer responsibility for waste is becoming the norm – and that will happen here too.

So, no longer will producers and retailers be able to divorce themselves from the sight of their products polluting our streets, rivers and, ultimately, our seas. As the pressure builds for real action, some responsible businesses are now willing to engage and play their part – but they are by far in the minority.

We are insisting that all producers in the UK do more to influence their customers to stop littering.

Recycle

While we’re at it, we need a joint effort from all to communicate with the public on the need for our behaviour to change – we can all choose to reuse a water bottle, a cup for coffee or to recycle more.

This is not about blame, this is about change – changing products, consumption and attitudes.

We are all contributing to the growing waste mountain on land and in our seas. As individuals, we all need to start making choices that deliver different outcomes. We need to recognise that it is the choices we make when we buy things that result in the end waste product, a high percentage of which is littered.

We must create a culture in which dropping a plastic drinks bottle in our towns and open spaces is as unacceptable as drink-driving. We have to change our behaviour to make that happen.

The drive for change has started. Charges for carrier bags, progress on deposit return schemes and moves on plastic straws are all welcome individually. But the scourge of ocean litter is a sign that more significant action is required – and that we need to look further upstream at ways to tackle the plastic pollution in our seas.

Action must be determined, co-ordinated and backed with resources. Mail readers have so enthusiastically backed this newspaper’s campaign to Banish the Bottles that they will expect no less.

As we look forward to another summer season where we can enjoy our open spaces, let’s understand that while we can and must ask others – including government and producers – to do more, at least part of the solution lies with each and every one of us individually.

Finally, if we consider the value of our country’s natural beauty to tourism and our wider economy, we can’t afford to sit back.

We must collectively harness the energy around the issue now so that Scotland doesn’t become one of the dirtiest countries in Europe.