This morning I was thinking about this post and thought I needed a photo to illustrate. I knew if I walked outside my door it would only take a minute or so to complete the task. And sure enough there was a McDonalds cup stuck in a shrub and garbage all over the pavement.
The amount of litter in all its shapes and forms on the pavements, in the streets, hedges and grassy verges of Hackney is mind-boggling. I am well and truly stunned. It's not just Hackney either--although it is particularly bad here. London generally is awash with litter. People here have no compunction about dropping cans, bags, bits of food, etc etc on the ground. I suppose they think someone else will pick it up for them.
For the non-litterers amongst us, those of us who hate litter and would never drop anything on the ground, litter is more than an eyesore. It's a sign of laziness and apathy. People don't seem to care about their communities, we think, to them, it's just a big bin.
So what to do about it? Littering used to be anathema. Litterers were scolded. The received wisdom was littering was a disgusting thing, done by disgusting people. No more. It seems littering is ok now. Why?
