There was a good column in The Times recently about the state of Britain’s roadsides, which frequently are liberally strewn with litter.
It suggested that we get serious about cleaning it up. Any campaign to get that done would receive my support, too. But I don’t know that we should feel quite so much shame about litter’s existence as we sometimes do. I bet that, fly-tipping aside, most of it gets there by accident.
I can’t place a bin bag outside my front door late at night to carry it to the wheelie bin at the end of the lane in the morning because by then a rat or a crow will have taken a few chunks out of the bag and everything inside will have started blowing around the garden.
And there’s a lay-by down the road from me where I often see black bags left poking from the top of the wheelie bins. I’m sure the intent is good, but it’s not likely to end well, given that Britain is a windy island in the North Atlantic with plenty of scavenging wildlife.
Similar bin-cramming happens in town centres; stuff is placed near the top of those bins that have an opening on both sides, creating the perfect wind tunnel for sucking lightweight rubbish precariously placed in them.
So by all means let’s get Britain’s roads tidy again, but at the same time let’s make a plan to prevent it going wrong again.
Often it’s thoughtlessness over malice. So let’s have more bins, better designed, more frequently emptied and with big signs about not overfilling them. And make local amenity tips free again, too.