By Neil Coupe
The radio station that I listen to first thing in the morning has a feature ‘In My Opinion’, where a contributor gives a view on a subject of his or her choosing.
The very nature of the feature is that it is intended to provoke a response from the listeners, so even if subject appears to be uncontroversial, the viewpoint rarely is.
On this occasion, the subject was litter.
Litter, in the view of the woman speaking, is not the fault of the ‘litterer’. It is the fault of absolutely everyone else. It is the fault of the packaging industry for creating the packaging. It is the fault of the food industry for using the packaging. It is the fault of the council for not having enough bins, or not emptying them quickly enough. It is the fault of the Government, probably.
This had both my wife and me shouting at the radio at 6.20am, probably exactly what the radio producers had wanted.
Thinking no more of it, I set off to work, only to be confronted by a pavement covered in rubbish. Recognisable rubbish. Our rubbish.
Our blue bin bag had been savaged by one of our curious local foxes. We are now able to add local wildlife to the list of the litterers, but it was all rather futile as everything edible was in the separate, sealed, food caddy.
If we were to listen to the views of the radio correspondent, then the logical action would be to let nature take its course with the wind taking it out of eye-shot, or hope that someone else would do something about the mess, and anyway, it is someone else’s fault. I’m not 100% that our neighbours would be overly happy with that.
It took all of two minutes to clear up the mess of the previous week’s waste, although I had not expected that brushing up the debris would cause another problem. A friendly ashen-faced dog walker was stopped dead in his tracks by his recalcitrant but handsome dog, who, it was announced, was frightened of brushes.
Was there an element of truth in what the woman said? She did articulate one bugbear of mine that there is frequently unnecessary packaging, particularly for fruit and vegetables. Do apples really need to be hermetically sealed? Does a cabbage need to be in a plastic bag in its journey from the supermarket shelf to the pan? Do we genuinely need to buy water in plastic bottles?
Shopping can definitely be made more environmentally friendly through the reduction of waste. Does this excuse laziness, and lack of respect for the places and people around you?
‘Other’ people can help through the reduction of packaging, but ultimately a tidy environment is everyone’s responsibility and the voices calling for a lack of vigilance and care, or passing the buck onto others are, in my opinion, in the wrong.
However, although it may not help our local foxes, as I cleared the mess from the pavement, I could not help myself from looking forward to the day when we will have nice big secure wheelie bins outside our homes, and less debris on our pavements.
