Where there's muck there's brass

Oct 7 2008 By Karren Brady

STROLLING down a city street last week, I almost fell over a dirty mattress half wrapped around a lamp-post and then stepped in a splurge of white paint spilled on the pavement a few yards beyond.

Even in Birmingham, which I sometimes feel is the world’s capital of litter, this was a bit much.

Every day we are expected to dodge the discarded cans and snack packets, the stray hub caps and the foam packing, the cardboard and the pizza boxes in a sort of Walkers crisp-sponsored Grand National.

On this course, a dirty mattress is Becher’s Brook, an emptied pot of paint, Canal Turn.

Even for the most public spirited among us, clearing away other people’s rubbish has become a chore too far.

Some schools no doubt try to educate children to bin their litter and a lot of older people are most careful to use receptacles.

Generally, though, the job of doing away with other people’s rubbish is left to street cleaners, human or machine, or the high winds or heavy rains to sweep into some infested corner into which rats would enter only in galoshes and gloves.

Those of us in pain at the eyesores along country roads as well as filthy alleyways may offer clever solutions but nothing in such cases works as well as incentives. And here at last I see a glimmer of hope.

Encouraged by Tesco’s scheme of awarding a point on a card for every four pieces of litter, John and Ann Till took to the splattered streets of Petersfield, Hampshire, and collected until their fingers hurt.

To Petersfield’s shame and their benefit, the couple picked up 60,000 pieces of litter in three months, pushed them into the Tesco recycling bank and earned themselves no fewer than 36,000 air miles for a honeymoon in the United States.

The thing that make this story remarkable is that if it had happened in Mumbai or Madrid, we’d have said: “Typical. So what?”

In green and pleasant England, there should be no possibility. But so many people just don’t care and if you remind someone not to chuck his chips container outside your house, you’re much more likely to get a mouthful of abuse than a “sorry.”

There’s no doubt that Tesco is as much responsible as any firm for the current squalor on our roads but at least they have come up with a useful antidote, one that could help enterprising schools, clubs or charities. And for Ann and John, it has been a wonderful bonus.

He said: “While it was nice to get the rubbish for the good cause, it was disappointing to see there are clearly a lot of litter louts in our town.

“But it did raise a smile when we were in business class on the flight back to Gatwick to think that the litter louts of Petersfield had paid for the pleasure.”

Bring them to Brum, I say. They’d win a flight to the moon and back.

* PS: Come on, Gordon. Announce that all deposits in all major UK banks are underwritten by the government. People say this would cost trillions but the reality is that it would cost nothing. Banks trade on confidence and confidence would be restored.