Attended a worthwhile reception at Parliament this evening in support of the CPRE 'stop the drop' campaign against litter and flytipping. As the Lib Dem environment spokesperson I spend a lot of my time debating the big global environmental issues like climate change and energy policy, yet when we undertake surveys locally probably the biggest environmental issue that gets raised is litter. Locally the perception is that the Council seems to have cut back on litter picking and this has not gone un-noticed.
The campaign is calling for tougher enforcement action when people are caught fly-tipping or littering, as well as incentive schemes to reduce littering such as bottle deposit schemes. More than 20 countries and a dozen US states have such schemes. Bill Bryson, CPRE president, who spoke at the Reception, said that in Iowa the introduction of such a scheme had more than halved bottle waste. He warned that we were in danger of ending up with a countryside that was '..beautiful from the ankle up'. In reply the Minister was reluctant to commit to a deposit scheme, even though a DEFRA report from a few years back said it would work and many other countries use them successfully. I can feel a campaign coming on....
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