How can we solve littering?

Kettering never had so many litter picking initiatives... But still, the litter keeps coming. Twenty minutes after I cleared the litter in London Road, near Wicksteed Park, new crisp packets already started to appear.

Apparently the Conservative candidates are saying that the wardens cannot really impose fines. that’s what the lady in Wallis Crescent told me today. We have proposed plain-clothes wardens several times, but it was never taken seriously.

When I was a child, my parents depicted communist Russia as a terrible place where people got 1000 pound fines for dropping litter. Even as a child, I thought it made perfect sense to punish people for littering, so perhaps it was the first time I realised that I’m a socialist at heart.

Now, I’m not proposing 1000 pounds, but I am serious about the anti-littering strategy. The only way to solve the litter problem is with a rigorous anti-litter strategy: 

• Plain-clothes wardens should monitor litter hotspots and impose exemplary fines, accompanied by compulsory litter picking.
• The Labour group has consistently proposed plain-clothes wardens to spot careless dog owners and litter bugs for several years already.
• Offenders should be made to sit through a course to show the impact of litter on nature and wildlife, similar to a speeding course for drivers breaking the speed limit.
• Bins in busy streets need to be emptied regularly, or replaced by extra-large underground bins if possible. 
• Special ashtrays can be installed near pubs, based on a design piloted in Bournemouth. For example, it enticed people to vote for their favourite football player with their cigarette bud, in a specially adapted container.  

These initiatives teach people to love and respect their environment in a time of climate change.

This is the only planet we have, so we need to take littering seriously.

Promoted by Anne Lee of The Yards, 12b Market Street, Kettering, NN16 0AH.