A load of old rubbish

I grew up in the Seventies. In some ways, it’s a miracle any of my generation are still here. Puffing on fags was widespread and no-one had any namby-pamby ideas about protecting children from second-hand smoke. Seat belts were a rather louche extra feature and our playgrounds featured high, steep slides, witch’s hat roundabouts that offered an exciting opportunity to injure yourself and of course hard concrete on which to fall. Apart from a huge graze on my leg from being dragged round by the roundabout on concrete and a few bruises from falling off swings, I emerged relatively unscathed from my Playground Years. If you had any sense, you hung on tight! 

That said, there was lots of good stuff around too. Drinks mostly came in glass containers which you took back to the shop and got money for. You could buy quite a lot with a penny at the sweet shop. Helicopter parenting was several generations in the future, so we all wandered around or went off on our bikes without anyone worrying about it. We lived by various government campaigns designed to keep us alive in spite of our surroundings.

The Tufty Club was big news, teaching us all road safety. “Never Go With Strangers” (made in 1971) was shown in the school hall. With a selection of dodgy facial hair, weird hats and smoked glasses, the actors in the film did a good job of making sure none of us fell for that old chestnut, “Come and see my puppies." The film makers even included some scenes in a Seventies playground, witch’s hat and all. Click here to go back in time.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEjnmhBJA1w

The Keep Britain Tidy campaign was also dinned into our heads. To this day, I cannot let rubbish fall out of my car, my handbag or anywhere else without running to pick it up. It was one of those things you just didn’t do, along with going with strangers and running out into the road. So, here is the question for this week, and it’s a genuine one. Please feel free to reply. When did it become acceptable to drop rubbish instead of putting it in the bin? I’ve witnessed so many people driving along, opening their car window and hurling their rubbish out. Why? Why would you do this? I simply don’t understand. Where do they think it’s going to go?

I’m writing this on Saturday 29^th February, a wet, grey, rainy day in Suffolk. What inspired me? A post by a friend on Facebook. You can see it on my page. A wonderful chap, Jason Alexander, has become a local hero with his social enterprise, Rubbish Walks. He doesn’t have to go out in the wind and the rain picking up other people’s cigarette butts and crisp packets, but he does just the same. The picture that inspired this blog was of him and his team, young and old, outside a shop in St Peter’s Street, Ipswich. It’s pouring, but they’re all out with their rubbish sacks picking up stuff that other people decided to drop. You can see Jason in action below with a staggering number of cigarette butts. He picked all those up with his hands. Imagine that.

Smoke if you must. Eat fast food in the car if that’s your thing. But please don’t drop the evidence on the ground, or hurl it out of your car window. It’s bad for the environment, it’s deeply disrespectful and it’s not fair that people like Jason should have to give up so much of their time cleaning up after you.

My generation were exposed to so much anti-litter publicity that I think we got the impression that dropping a sweetie wrapper was punishable by death. Granted, fast food was limited to Findus Crispy pancakes and the odd Wimpy, and there just wasn’t so much “stuff” around. There’s absolutely no excuse, though, for dropping litter. Let’s give Jason and his team a break.

You can find out more about Rubbish Walks here: https://rubbishwalks.co.uk/