I know my particular road is subject to more litter than most because school children use it as a cut-through on their way home. Every day I leave my house and scoop up tens of chocolate bar wrappers/coke cans and the like, put them in my own bin and die a little bit inside. I have become the crazy woman who calls the council on a weekly basis. They literally know me on first name terms now and I get the feeling they have stopped caring because they basically think I'm insane. At first they sent street cleaners and litter pickers (who, by the way, are terrible. I've watched them from my window just walking up and down the road not bothering to pick anything up), but I've got a feeling my one woman battle is failing.
But it's not just my road that's rubbish. Reddish Lane/Gorton Road is, frankly, disgusting. Plastic bags, crisp packets, chip wrappers fly around our streets every single day and it seems to have become accepted that that's just how it is. Is this really how we want Reddish to look? Am I the only one who feels really crappy when I step out on to dirty streets? It can't be good for anyone's state of mind.
It took these pictures between the Post Office and Williamson Street (where the side entrance to Morrisons is). It can't have been more than a 20 metre walk.
I've been wracking my brains as to why we have such a high volume of litter in our community and I've narrowed it down to the following questions:
1) Do we have enough bins in Reddish?
2) Do we have enough support from the council when it comes to regular street cleansing?
3) Do we, as residents, just not care enough? If there is litter on the streets are people more likely just to drop their own litter?
I have my own views on the answers to these questions but I'd like to know yours.
This is the first post in what I hope to be the beginning of a campaign to clean up Reddish.
by Ana Hernandez
I totally agree with you here, I emigrated to Australia 4yrs ago having lived in reddish all of 24yrs. Recently in March I returned for a visit with my Aussie partner who'd never left his country ever, we would commute to north reddish train station on a regular basis and he would comment every day how bad of a dumping ground it looked!
ReplyDeleteI was embarrased and ashamed as I know growing up I too once contributed to the mess! I think it's as you say if the streets are already full ppl just think it's ok to add to it. I also believe the schools don't do enough to drill it into the kids how important it is to recycle! My partner had a good idea that all local schools should take it in turns an hour a day different grades etc and take the kids out litter picking to make them aware of how bad it looks and what it's doing to the environment!
I feel your pain and hope one day reddish can be litter free and all residents care as much as we do about that happening!