PEOPLE have been avoiding me. It's taken a while to work out why, but I think I've got it sussed. As I stood by the side of a country lane, the cars would slow down and drivers would peer out, curious, then their expression would change to fear and t
hey'd hit the accelerator.
What could be so frightening about the sight of a young(ish) woman with a binbag picking up litter from under the hedgerow? After scaring half a dozen drivers, it clicked: they thought I was a dangerous criminal assigned to community service due to prison overcrowding. After all, why would anyone pick up litter unless they'd been ordered to by the courts?
Criminal? No. Litter vigilante? Why, yes. All I need is an A-Team-style van and I could start touring Scotland, delivering justice to fly-tippers and sweetie-wrapper-droppers alike. Those stinking piles of fag butts outside pubs would be history. Chewing gum would be removed from the pavement and handed back to the offending individuals. True, I'll need to learn kung fu to defend myself against the unscrupulous litterbugs, but this is a job that needs to be done.
As an environmental issue, litter isn't as cool as solar panels and it dates back further than fixing the hole in the ozone layer, but that doesn't mean we can get complacent.
My personal crusade began when I was gazing out the window at the snowdrops under the hedge. While marvelling at the wonder of nature, something yellow caught my eye. A patch of aconites, perhaps? No, a discarded tub of Utterly Butterly. Just up the road, I spied a paper coffee cup. It's a ten-mile drive to get a latte from where I live, so the cup simultaneously made me angry and set off pangs of longing. As the patrol continued, I found an Irn Bru can, crisp bags, a Twix wrapper, some roof insulation and, finally, a cooker deposited in a field of surprised-looking sheep.
Keep Scotland Beautiful's most recent research found 46% of Scots drop litter, despite knowing that it's against the law and that they could be fined £50. Is anyone ever penalised for littering? Yes: last year more than 4,000 fixed-penalty notices were issued, but it still costs local authorities upwards of £70 million a year to clean up after us.
The research showed that people littered because they felt "their individual behaviour was of little consequence, especially in areas which were already littered". Come on, people! Where's your civic pride?
On the bus the other day I watched as a well-dressed, middle-aged couple worked their way through a bag of sweets, dropping all the wrappers on the floor. I should have given them a lecture, but meekly opted to tut instead. And this wasn't a one-off – Keep Scotland Beautiful says some 63% of 45- to 54-year-olds admitted to littering.
Despite these bad habits, though, it seems we're still shocked by litter – especially by dog poo, chewing gum, food and drink packaging, fast-food leftovers and needles and plasters (the top five most hated types of litter, apparently).
Quite apart from looking awful, though, much of this kind of junk won't biodegrade and it poses a risk to wildlife. According to the Wildlife Trust, 'lethal litter' includes yoghurt cartons (which can trap hedgehogs), floating plastic bags (that can kill marine life) and the discarded plastic loops from packs of drinks cans (which can trap birds and small mammals). So the next time you see someone throw away a coffee cup, explain, slowly but surely, that their litter could be deadly. And if they won't listen, I'll give them a poke with my litter picker.
BE GREENER• Organise a community clean-up A full guide to planning, the risks, equipment, sponsorship and so on can be found on the Keep Scotland Beautiful website.
• Report fly-tipping You can call the 24-hour Dumb Dumpers Stop Line on 0845 2 30 40 90 or visit
www.dumbdumpers.org to get it cleaned up.
Space of wasteVEGETABLE peelings, apple cores, coffee grounds, tea bags and egg shells taking up room in your kitchen bin? According to www.wrap.org.uk, 6.7 million tons of food scraps get thrown away in domestic bins every year – and produces vast amounts of carbon dioxide as it decomposes.
Composting offers a great way round all this – but has never been a option for gardenless flat-dwellers.
Luckily there are now several options to get round that problem. An indoor wormery (containing a special type of worm) is recommended at
www.bean-sprouts.blogspot.com. This can sit in your kitchen and all you have to do is put some newspaper in for the worms and your kitchen scraps in the top, where the worms will break it down. Occasionally the waste produced by the worms needs to be emptied, but this makes great fertiliser for your house plants.
If you are a bit squeamish at the thought of worms in your kitchen, it is possible to use tiny micro organisms. www.wigglywigglers.co.uk sells composting bins that use EM (effective micro-organisms) providing much the same function as a wormery with even less hassle.
For those with a garden but too many stairs to run down every five minutes with the kitchen rubbish,
www.bean-sprouts.blogspot.com suggests putting the scraps in a container in the freezer. When it's full, take it outside to a compost bin. It'll defrost and decompose as normal.
HEALTHY PLANETHemp underwear – just the thought of it has me coming out in a rash. So it comes as a delightful surprise to discover Enamore, whose eco undies are both green and gorgeously sexy. The Mon Cherie French knickers and matching bralette are silky smooth, trimmed with vintage-style black lace and ribbon ties. (Knickers £36, bralette £45,
www.enamore.co.uk)
The full article contains 1019 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
