BLAISE TAPP: Who is responsible for all the litter that is dropped?

Right up there will be the regular washing of hands - although our seven year old does question whether he still needs to bother, now that ‘Covid has gone away’ - while please and thank yous along with not wiping one’s nose on soft furnishings are also high up on the list of basic good behaviour.

Another fundamental of the unofficial good parenting code of conduct is to drum into young ‘uns from the earliest of ages what bins are for. As soon as they are able to walk, kids everywhere are taught to throw their litter away responsibly and, no, this isn’t some bold modern parenting innovation to rival baby bootcamps, it’s something that has been hardwired into generations of children.

Back in the 1980s, a decade when casual racism and everyday sexism were openly embraced, chucking a can of Tizer or empty packet of Space Raiders on the ground was just about the worst thing that a schoolkid could do. The reassuringly pleasant, pullover-wearing folk who presented family favourites such as Blue Peter and Playschool would hammer home the message about the social cost of littering. And we would listen - I remember making monsters and robots out of litter during art classes at primary school and being proud to receive a silver star for my efforts.

Given the fact that there cannot be a forty-something in the land who hasn’t had nightmares about a hedgehog becoming stuck in a discarded container, I continue to be staggered by the amount of rubbish that is strewn across our streets and roadsides.

Who’s responsible for it all? We cannot easily blame an ignorant few due to the sheer amount of filth which disfigures many parts of our country, so we can assume that those endless lessons and Cub and Brownie badges dedicated to the issue haven’t had the desired impact on a significant proportion of the population.

The trouble is that those responsible think that they can get away with it - unless they are caught in the act by Mrs Tapp who is fond of letting people know that they have ‘accidentally’ dropped something. There are, of course, a number of campaigning groups who do great work both educating numpties who continue to litter and actually clearing away huge amounts of rubbish.

The latest such campaign seeks to clean up our motorways, which are an utter disgrace. The group Clean Up Britain has produced a 10-point action plan, which includes upping fines for littering from £150 to £1,000 and the installation of cameras on sliproads and junctions.

If this all sounds a tad draconian, then it’s worth knowing that in just two years, more than 45,000 bags of rubbish or 451 tonnes, was cleared from the M6 motorway, which even without the unwanted litter, is 230-miles of unpleasantness. There was a time when I spent a significant chunk of my life on the M6, regularly being stuck in soul sapping tailbacks that would seem to last an eternity. Not once during those tedious episodes did I dispose of anything through the window of my trusty saloon and I just don’t understand why other motorists think they can.

If I am being brutally honest, my little runaround resembles a wheelie bin most of the time but I do clear it every now and again and when I do, it always goes straight into our household waste rather than some remote layby or supermarket car park.

I’ve long wondered about what sort of people brazenly dump their waste and it’s hard not to think that these people are likely to commit other types of anti social offences or worse.

While there are worse things for society to contend with than litter, it is a scourge that says as much about the country we live in as it does about those responsible.