Not Letting Up On Littering!

There's little wonder the world has gone all 'Anti-Plastic' when you look at the image opposite....

The image shows what I collected on this mornings 15 minute dog walk and is a result of not even 24hrs since the last time I cleared the area which is only a small recreational area in a local suburb. In mid summer last year, I was collecting 4 or 5 carrier bags full, every other day!! I hate to point fingers, but it is without question young children and teenagers predominantly dropping the litter while using the area. There is absolutely no excuse for this as there are litter bins at both entrances to the area, so it purely boils down to education, whether that comes from home or school.

Practically all the litter collected in this image is plastic or film based (except the odd sheet of paper from a school book) and most is PET from drinks bottles which you cant really see buried beneath the plastic film based foil sweet and crisp packets. Practically all will have been bought from local shops too as they will have purchased these most likely on their way to the park.

My point is this; litter is a major problem, we know. It isn't going away any time soon and there isn't an overnight fix. Contaminated recyclate materials and waste is a major problem too for both councils and industry.

What if we rethink the litter problem? What if Government backed a nationwide 'litter pick' effort where everyone had an incentive to get involved? What if they were rewarded for their efforts? What if the litter that individuals or families collect became worth something? (points make prizes etc) Perhaps a reward scheme...

Remember the Pokemon phase where everyone was running around with smartphones chasing imaginary creatures? What if a similar app or game was developed for children which encouraged them to take litter to the litter bins? An app where they scan the barcode of the packaging which calculates its worth when they scan an RFID type device attached to the receptacle when they deposit the litter in a proper bin - a bit like the scan and shop thing works at Tesco. It would enable authorities to track the trends and quantities and work out when collections need to be done accurately and efficiently.

I'm sure there could be ways of further enhancing this too to help industry, changing the recycling bins in public areas to recognise the material that was being deposited and when posted through the receptacle, it would be diverted to the correct collection bin and shredded onsite. This would not only purify the recyclate stream but reduce cost in terms of transport as weight per volume would increase meaning less collections. Fitting more into a given space is optimising capacity. This could also be applied to the domestic recycling process too. This would help local authorities meet their targets in terms of reducing landfill and increases in recycling and save them costs in fuel and labour.

I regularly pick up the litter from our local playing field whilst out walking the dog. It may seem a bit of an odd pass time but it really frustrates me to see the place where I live in a mess. There are several other reasons why I do this too, community pride for example and to lead by example. If local children playing see me picking up the rubbish they may have left, they often ask why I do it. The younger children sometimes even offer to help which is a great result as far as I'm concerned. Litter is harmful for wildlife as we know from media and press articles, but not only that, what about the packaging your dog picks up, how do we know what has been in it, eating it as they often do, is harmful. I don't want excessive vet bills for operations to remove packaging blocking our dogs gut. Another reason also being - the local authority employees don't pick it up (Why would or should they?) and when the grass cutters come around they simply mow over it all spreading it far and wide making the problem even worse. The knock on effect of this is glass bottles and cans etc end up damaging the equipment they use which in turn means the machines go out of services or in for repairs, if they have no equipment, they can't mow the grass and If they don't mow the grass, the community goes all 'anti-council' because the area looks untidy, whilst at the same time our rates continue to increase and we get less and less as a result. So quite a few reasons why I do what I do, besides me being involved in the plastics industry myself working for a forward thinking manufacturer based in Hull - Rainbow Professional Ltd, but not only that - its actually quite good exercise, and it makes me feel good that I'm doing something pro-active! #ReduceRecycleReuse