Littered with snags

ONCE we sign up to litter picking in the countryside, we never get let off. It’s an unending task, in which we soon get to know the worst offenders.

- 

They drink Monster, eat burgers from fast-food outlets and appear to believe that blue plastic bags enhance the rural environment. As a result, together with the old tyres, wing mirrors and disposable nappies, our highways and lanes are strewn with the detritus of the disposable society.

Litter is the environmental concern that angers people most and it’s plastic that causes the greatest offence. Those bottles and bags, pouches and trays that get into the streams and rivers are so often flushed out into the sea. Since 2000, the world has produced some 4.6 billion tons of non-recycled plastics and much of that has ended up in the oceans. It gets into the gullets of fish and of birds, it destroys habitats and it inhibits the sea’s capacity to sequestrate carbon.