We have to stand up to litter louts. Fines won’t stop them
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Version 0 of 1. It’s over three years ago that I threw a plastic bottle back through the car window whence it came. I thought little of it at the time until I tweeted about it and a small media storm erupted. Apparently, it was not normal to stand up to litter louts. Which is not to say that the issue is not important to people. It is clearly something many of us feel very strongly about. We just don’t take any action. Now I hear that the Department for Communities and Local Government is planning to increase fines for dropping litter. The minimum fine is set to double to £100, with communities minister Marcus Jones claiming that those who drop litter would be “hit in the pocket”. I have to say I have my doubts about this. I imagine that the average litter lout will not be thinking, “I would have dropped that piece of litter last week when the fine was only £50 but gosh now that the fine is £100 I think I’ll find the nearest bin instead.” The enforcement of such fines is also problematic. In November, David Ellis was given an on-the-spot fine in Birkenhead when he dropped a bookmark from a recent purchase. He lodged an objection as there was genuine doubt that he had deliberately dropped the bookmark. The fine was withdrawn. Related: British litter worst in world, David Sedaris tells MPs Litter is a huge problem. Last year I went to India. One of the first things I noticed driving through villages was the enormous amount of rubbish at the side of the roads. At first I was shocked, but you gradually become accustomed to it. It becomes the norm and you accept it. It was on my return to England that I noticed the situation here was not very different. True, we have services that come and clean the roads and pavements, but as soon as you take a route off the well-trodden path you are made aware of the issue. There is an alleyway I frequently walk down in Chiswick, next to the railway line. Between the alleyway and the track are mountains of litter: beer cans, bottles, hub caps, pushchairs, some of it obviously thrown from train windows, other stuff fly-tipped over the fence. It makes for a pretty disgusting sight. Some councils have operated a zero-tolerance policy, employing companies to patrol the streets and issue fines like traffic wardens, and presumably this has some positive benefits. In the short term this could be a partial solution but it will take more than this to change attitudes. Why do people drop litter in the first place? I have always considered it a crime of laziness, but there is a defiance and contempt for the environment behind it too. When I threw the bottle back in the car the driver looked surprised and somewhat humiliated. More recently I asked a young boy of about 10 to pick up some litter he had dropped on my road. He told me to “fuck off”. Related: Fines for dropping litter to rise to £150 If the future of our environment depends on the attitudes of kids like this we are in trouble. We need to find a more effective way than fines to solve the problem. Not so long ago drink-driving was considered something you hoped to get away with. Immediate disqualification from driving put an end to that, but so did a change in thinking. It is no longer considered clever to put yourself behind the wheel of a car half-cut, risking your own life and the lives of others. Offending rates have fallen dramatically over the last 10 years. It falls on all of us to take responsibility for litter. I didn’t want to create a media storm by challenging someone for breaking the law. I genuinely thought that was what most people did, but I was wrong. As long as it is reasonably safe to do so (in a public place with others around) we should all be challenging this behaviour. Imagine if every time someone dropped a cigarette butt, six or seven people let their disapproval be known. I am confident the people who care about litter and the environment are in the majority – we are just being far too quiet about it. Don’t be afraid. Challenge the unacceptable. Make a noise about it, because if an increased fine makes a blind bit of difference I’ll eat my hat. |