Litter Heroes
Did you know that according to Keep Britain Tidy, More than two million pieces of litter are dropped in the UK every day. The cost to the taxpayers for street cleaning is over £1 billion a year.
I live in the countryside and I love to go on walks in my local area. I feel incredibly lucky to live where I do. Often when on walks I try to pick up litter as I go along and dispose of it properly when I get home. Unfortunately along the verges where I live there is more litter than I can carry, but this time of year (when the weather is sunnier, and the verges haven’t come into full growth) is a great time to litter pick. So, last weekend my husband and I decided to do a proper litter pick on one of our favourite walks. We were armed my bin bags and decided as we went along to fill them up, leave them on the side of the road, and once we’d finished, we would drive and pick up the bags. I knew there was a lot of litter, but I was shocked to at how much we gathered.
Our total walk was 5km, and we had already filled one bin bag in less than 1km of walking. The main culprit was bottles and cans of alcohol, strewn all along the hedge row. It’s safe to assume it is the same culprits over, and over, as it’s the same band of booze, fizzy drink etc. dump in the same location. We ran out of bin bags after 3km of walking and filled a total of 4.5 bin bags, which weighed in at 27.7kg.
I hope that in seeing a more tidy verge side that people are less likely to litter, but I don’t know. I knew there was an issue, but didn’t realise how big the littering problem was. I found out about Keep Britain Tidy #litterhero campaign, after doing our litter pick at the weekend. You can learn more here. Finding out there are other people out there who care, and want to help has restored my faith a little.
I just needed to write this because it is so sad that there are people who treat the environment with little to no respect. We are so lucky to live where we do, so please!!! Take your litter home with you, and if you are able, when you see any litter help to dispose of it responsibly.
P.S. You can check out the picture of all the rubbish we collected over on my Instagram Page.
