Litter!

Posted By: Mark Birkett
Date Posted: 20/03/2007

Dear fellow Rochdalian,

We have many things to be proud of in Rochdale but, you know it and I know it, the amount of litter here is not one of them.

Are you like me? Are you absolutely furious at the amount of litter in our town? OK. Then let's agree something must be done. But what?

We all know that the Council will never have enough money to pay enough Council workers to pick up all the litter Rochdale currently drops. And, to be frank, wouldn't you rather see more money spent on schools or health than on clearing up after dirty people?

Of course, that doesn't mean the Council shouldn't do its job but it does mean we need a massive culture change here as far as caring for communal space is concerned. We need people to stop dropping litter and, if anything, start picking it up.

How many litter louts are happy to see their tidy new car as their clean space? How many would choose to litter their own car? Their own house? Not many. But plenty of them are happy to litter the 'outside'; somewhere they don't see as theirs.

That's surely what we need to change. We need every person who chucks a wrapper out of their car window, or who fly tips a bag of rubbish in a park or who drops chewing gum on a pavement to realise that they are doing it to their space. Their space and yours and mine.

So, if you see someone fly-tipping in your area or throwing litter on the street,

• Challenge them, or
• Report them to your local Councillor, or
• Report the litter to Environmental Management

Let's get tough. Let's embarrass the idiots who do this. And let's applaud the Council every time they prosecute those who spoil our space.

And I'm going to pick up five pieces of litter every day in 2007, wherever I see it.

Are you?

Councillor Mark Birkett, Green Champion