Litter and Schools

I have started to litter pick around where I live. Bear in mind, I live in a small country village which is outside a town about 5 miles away so it is not a major route shall we say. On the first day, I filled up two big black sacks of rubbish taken from the roadside and the grass verges – the second day in the other direction another bag’s worth. And this is just about a mile radius from my house.

In my opinion, this is an absolute disgrace and I am not sure what it says about us as a nation – well I do actually but it is not repeatable on a blog such as this! I have spent a lot of time travelling in France and other parts of Europe by road and bike and they do not have anything like the litter problem we have in this country. Litter not only looks unsightly like the whole of our towns and countryside are now used as a giant litter bin but also it is harmful to wildlife (the RSPCA receives numerous calls every day about wildlife getting caught up in or injured from items of litter). Litter breeds litter that is for sure but it is beyond me why we cannot simply wait till we get home and then throw the litter in the bin – it really is not that hard.

I am sure that there are many ways to cure this problem and again, this blog is not for going into more detail on this but suffice it to say, I was delighted to see that litter forms one part of the Eco Schools topics in raising awareness about the problem and about being actively involved in doing something about it as a school within the community…such as litter picking days and initiatives such as The Great British Spring Clean. I only hope that if children learn at school about how dropping litter is bad for the environment, wildlife and local communities, then in later life they will hopefully not be the people who think that it is okay to throw cans, plastic bottles and packaging out of their cars.

Imagine too how much of the 20 million discarded plastic bottles and cans could be recycled into new drinks vessels – again massively benefitting the environment. The public cost for clearing up the country’s mess could be better spent on education or healthcare.

Let’s hope!