People power to deal with litter problem in the UK

People Clearing Litter aims to clean-up streets
Paul Eccleston and Steve McCormack, The Telegraph 27 Mar 08;

A campaign to clean up other people's discarded litter has been launched.

Steve McCormack, founder of People Clearing Litter, is attempting to recruit public-spirited volunteers to clean up eyesore sites.

He claims authorities are overwhelmed by the scale of the problem and the only solution is for like-minded people to do the job themselves.

Mr McCormack has set up a website - www.peopleclearinglitter.co.uk - as a focal point for the campaign where people can gain information and encouragement.

"The message of my campaign - that public bodies alone will never be able to tackle the litter problem - is not a counsel of despair, but one of optimism, because it provides the chance for ordinary people to show they are prepared to work together to improve their environment," he said.

He is asking people with a few minutes to spare fill up a bag or two of rubbish and then to register with the site, to report what they have done in their own area. They can also link up to jointly tackle the worst eyesores.

The website currently reports that 165 sites have so far been cleared of litter.

Here he explains his mission:

How we can solve the litter problem?

When I first suggested to friends that I was thinking of starting a national campaign to try to persuade British people to pick up litter thrown away by others, most thought I was on the mad side of naïve.

Although enough of them had noticed, with distaste, the increasing accumulation of litter in places they passed on foot or in cars, they doubted there'd be many people willing to get their hands dirty and actually help clear it up.

Worthy, but doomed to fail was the thrust of what they thought of my idea.

There were two reasons behind their pessimism. They thought people had an ingrained resistance to clearing up someone else's mess, particularly if that person could be categorised as lazy or anti-social.

And they said people would object to performing a task that was already the responsibility of public bodies, funded of course by the taxpayer.

But I saw flaws in both these cases. First, if no-one ever lifted a voluntary finger to put right the mistakes or misdeeds of others, we'd truly sink as a society. And second, our taxes are already spent on litter clearing. It is just that we, as a society, are tossing so much litter away that the authorities can't cope.

But what about Keep Britain Tidy, I hear you ask? Aren't they on top of the problem? Are they hell. First, they effectively re-branded themselves out of existence a couple of years ago by being swallowed up by an organisation no-one's ever heard of, called Encams.

And second, they manage to spend large chunks of their £10m annual budget (most of which is our taxes) on producing lengthy, wordy reports few will ever read.

The last of these concluded (I kid you not) that the litter problem had not got any worse over the last four years, when the truth staring us in the face every day is the complete opposite.

It's clear, I'm afraid, that publicly funded bureaucracies, with half an eye on their Government paymasters, can do nothing more than scratch the surface in this area.

We, the people, are the ones with the power.

So, a fortnight ago I launched the campaign and the website (www.peopleclearinglitter.co.uk) on Jeremy Vine's lunchtime BBC Radio 2 programme. My simple message was that, if we want to get rid of litter eyesores, we had better do some of the work ourselves.

I was overwhelmed and heartened by the response. Supportive phones calls flooded the programme, my email inbox was engulfed by messages promising active help, and within 24 hours, the website had registered 15,000 hits.

It was gratifying to know I wasn't alone, and I sensed a similar feeling of relief around the country. 'I thought I was the only one going around with an old carrier bag picking up litter,' wrote a woman from Windsor.

'It's such a relief to know that there are more of us around,' said another woman, from Kent, along with photographs of the cans, bottles, sweet wrappers and plastic bags she's just collected from a path near her home.

In a letter arriving the next day, a man from Sussex wrote: 'Thank heavens there are other like-minded people supporting your efforts. I was beginning to despair.'

By the end of the first day, hundreds of these and other supporters had recorded their recent litter-picking exploits on the website and started using the Forum area to communicate with like-minded people in their localities.

One of my initial aims was that the website, by providing this central rallying point for the campaign, would embolden and encourage people who might feel a little nervous or self-conscious collecting litter in public. Happily, the early signs are that this objective is being achieved.

A man from Burnley wrote: 'Great idea. I find rubbish spoiling my walks in the countryside, but I won't feel like a lone nutter if your idea takes off.'

In similar vein, a man told me of his resolve to do something about the 'thousands' of plastic bags stuck in trees next to his local Tesco store in Huntingdon. 'I am going to sort out this mess. You have given me the final push,' he reported.

One way in which I hope the campaign will spread is as a result of the visibility that will be created by supporters wearing the green campaign badges, and, more powerfully, tying up the bags of litter they collect with the green People Clearing Litter ribbon available through the website. The idea is that these flashes of green will attract the eye, as bulging bags are left for collection alongside council litter bins on footpaths and pavements.

This might just do two other things. First, councils might be encouraged to raise their game, as they surely should. And second, some of the current litter-droppers might just think twice the next time they causally toss that empty can into the bushes, or wind down their car window and chuck out a burger box and empty bottle.