1 Cardboard box.
1 Greaseproof Liner
1 Separate cardboard chip carton
1 plastic fork
1 tissue
1 sachet tomato sauce and/or brown sauce
1 sachet freshener
1 sachet vinegar
1 sachet salt


The whole lot is contained in one yellow plastic bag, giving a total of ten separate items, (excluding the food!). To this you can add a soft drink (paper cup, plastic lid, plastic straw) - and, if there is promotion on, paper hat and paper stars and stripes dickie bow!

Of course there are no prizes for guessing where all this lot ends up! Add to this cigaratte ends, spent matches, sweet wrappers, drinks cans and cartons, multiply the total by say, four and you get some idea of the typical kind of mess that can be made by four schoolkids sitting on a street bench in their lunch break! Is it any wonder our streets are such a state?

Is there an answer? Yes- the observation of three 'E's-  Enforcement,  Education and Eradication. Though littering is technically an offence, the law is not enforced. Its a bit like Sunday trading or not having a dog licence! The police simply don't want to know, they have more important things to do than arresting coke can freaks and ashtray emptying yuppies! Yet if the public are to be discouraged from leaving litter people need to be hit where it hurts, in their pockets. One answer would be to form plain clothes 'litter patrols' organised on similar  lines as ticket issuing traffic wardens. Their job would be to pursue and prosecute offenders - both individuals and companies. They would have the power to fine on the spot if necessary and to arrest if obstructed. Penalties should be made to fit the offence- heavy fines and/or compulsory community service clearing up litter and fly tips. People would almost certainly think twice about littering if they had to spend enforced periods picking it up!

People need to be educated to the undesirability of litter. The whole problem exists because littering is socially acceptable. Specialised teaching in schools and institutes of further education outlining environmental problems and how they are tackled, would go a long way towards encouraging a sense of collective responsibility for the environment in which we live. Packaging needs to be made more bio-degradeable, reduced and eliminated entirely where possible. Materials need to be re-cycled. All this demands education and environmental awareness.

There is a need for more publicity, especially at a local level, where papers could run environmentally based features, explore local issues, and even discourage would-be offenders by publishing their names! People should be encouraged to correctly dispose of their waste. Charges for disposing of trade waste levied by local authorities should be removed, the costs being borne by the state, thus discouraging fly tipping. Environmental protection  should come before short term profitability.

Eradication can be largely acheived by enforcement and education. These factors however do not get rid of our waste, they only make it easier and cheaper to manage. In the end, eradication, however acheived, costs money- for collection, disposal, incineration, recycling. This heavy responsibility should not be left to any cowboy who can put in the cheapest bid for the tender! Privatisation is not conducive to effective,co-ordinated waste disposal.

So, wrapped in these hopelessly idealistic thoughts (and wishing I was elsewhere) I trudge the dreary littered streets of Calderdale. Too soon out of me bed, bored out of my skull, sometimes I think I must be mad to do this. I reflect wryly on the irony of the Guardian article I wrote two years ago in which I lamented that I could not even get a job as a 'street sweeper'! Fate it seems, moves in mysterious ways!