READER LETTER: Litter - Let's win the litter battle

I am writing to you about an issue I'm sure your aware of. As I make my way around the country on my bicycle, my road is lined with rubbish. Plastic bags, bottles, food containers, drink cans, furniture, mattresses, piles of builders waste, treated wood, tyres, asbestos, toilet paper; basically almost anything you can imagine. It looks disgusting, it threatens our wonderful ecology, and worst of all, if it is not picked up, natural processes will bury it underground, where it will remain hidden for thousands of years. Sadly, despite the efforts of NGO's, litter picking groups and concerned individuals, this is evidently a battle which is being lost. Collectively they simply cannot counter the outpour, and the response from councils is generally marginal. I've created a petition for the creation of a National Litter Clean-Up Scheme. A simple and cheap solution, it reads as follows;

For the creation of a nationwide, government-run, voluntary Litter Clean-Up Scheme, where publicly funded bodies are made responsible for planning, organising and implementing litter pick-ups.

The pick-ups would utilise volunteers and they would be organised and controlled by the authority responsible for the area being cleaned on any particular campaign. If you care for what you’ve just read then please take a few minutes to sign the petition, and please spread the word by any possible means; whether it be by social media, magazines, word of mouth, pigeons.... This is the only way it will work.

You’ll find the petition at the following site – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/118853. It only takes a few minutes and there’s no need to register. If we truly value the beauty of where we live then we must be proactive, so we must get out there and clean up this mess. And in doing so, not only set an example to each other, but you can encourage the consideration that our planet so desperately needs.

Alex Thomson

By email