Battle against litter is everyone's responsibility

Published: 25 April, 2008

Sir, Our city is becoming one big rubbish tip and we need a multi-faceted approach to tackle the problem.Firstly, we need to build awareness of the issue, starting in primary schools and continuing as part of social responsibility education. Young people need to understand that dropping litter "is not cool". These lessons need to be reinforced throughout our lives by public service adverts in papers, in cinemas, on bus shelters, etc.

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We need the council to install more litter bins and empty these before they overflow. We need them to be more pro-active about litter picking. Why is the riverside, the jewel of the city, allowed to become such a mess before anything is done about it? If litter is left to build up, it encourages other people to drop more litter. We need the council and the police to actually enforce the laws in respect of dropping litter.

If there are no consequences for breaking the law, there is little incentive to obey it. We also need litter picking to become one of the tasks given to people given community service orders.

But this is not just a job for the authorities. Individual citizens can help. They can adopt a patch of ground near their homes and keep it tidy and litter free.

Community groups can organise occasional litter picks by their members and the general public. If we see people drop litter, we can give it them back.

If we all make a real effort we can get on top of this problem. If we do not it will simply get worse. Let's do something about it. Our city is too beautiful to trash.

Stephen Connah, Island Bank Road, Inverness

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