Thursday 13th August

Why does litter annoy us so much?  Is it the total disregard for the environment, or the throw-away society we have drifted into?  Whatever, it certainly annoys me.  London is full of litter, to the point that you don’t even notice it anymore.  At least the fag packets seem to have diminished somewhat of late but it is the McDonalds boxes and Coke containers that seem to accumulate in corners that really annoy me.

Here in Eymet there is a big market on Thursday and a Night Market on Tuesday and a Gourmande evening again on Thursday, to say nothing of the special festival days, and yet after every event all the litter is cleared away.  At every night market there are clearly labeled “Poubelles” for food, glass and other waste – and people use them.  This morning walking the dogs there was a lorry and three workers collecting litter from the car-park, picking up discarded bottles and paper plates and even cigarette ends, leaving the place quite spotless.  There are two rubbish collections a week, where in England some council’s have reduced these to once a fortnight.  With councils hard pushed for cash and facing even more cuts you can expect even more litter in the U.K.  However the French manage their local finances the place is pretty litter-free.  And of course as we all know if there is no litter on the streets very few people drop any, whereas if the streets are filthy people simply chuck more stuff on the ground.