5th Column - Bugging Me

I hate litter.

An ex Londoner, I have just moved to Peterborough, having also lived in small towns. Peterborough is a scruffy city. It's scruffy because of the people that live there. It's scruffy because  teenagers drop litter. They go to the corner shop buy cans of drink, packets of sweets and the empty containers are just dropped on the ground or thrown into the hedge. Worse they smash bottles, not caring that the broken glass splinters will harm the paws of pets and wild life. They have no pride in their surroundings, no care for the environment. They are mindless morons.

Why should the council provide green spaces, trees, shrubs as  pleasant surroundings , litter bins, road sweepers to try to keep the city tidy mopping  up after these delinquent yobs.
One wonders how this riff raff have been brought up, maybe they live in abject squalor and their parents are equally to blame, dirty, untidy beings spoiling life  for any decent human being.

Once upon a time Corona delivered full bottles of pop door to door and collected the empties refunding a small 3 pence deposit on the glass bottle. Years ago non self service shops meant products were not prepacked and sweets were sold loose into a brown paper bag.

So called progress means take away packaged food and drink, and the shops and fast food outlets produce the excess packaging for litter louts to scatter about.

City Council's like Peterborough would do well to promote Pride in the Community, Pride in Peterborough. After all it is not a Peterborough problem alone. Prizes could be given as an incentive for cleaner neighbourhoods. Prizes could be sponsored by the fast food outlets and supermarkets.  Individuals that spoilt it for others could be named and shamed. The silent clean majority could isolate the scruffy few.There has to be a system of carrots and sticks. Enforcement is reactive and expensive. Proactive initiatives are cheaper, prevention is better than cure. Schools and the unemployed ranks could provide volunteers to blitz clear up areas.

I would like to bag all the litter these parasites  have dropped and empty it all around their beds while they slept. Would they even notice when they woke up, now only a fly on the wall would see if they had modicum of intelligence.