Litter

This is a bit of an old chestnut, but the problems have still not been addressed. New local legislation was brought in that would enable “officials” to handout £50 on-the-spot fines for littering.

In principle I think that this is a great idea. Litter is a problem through out York, especially more in the suburbs than in the centre, and this needs to be addressed.

The problem that I have with this is that facilities for people to dispose safely of litter are woefully inadequate.

So what am I talking about, well for a start the provision of litterbins. I would place litterbins in places where people wait - i.e taxi ranks, bus stops etc. While most of the taxi ranks have provision bus stops do not.

At my local bus stop, on one of the principle flagship routes into the town the nearest litter bin is only 20 yards away - the only problem is that you have to cross a very busy major road to get to it - definitely not safe for kids and you would also probably miss your bus.

One of the litter items that the council wanted to crack down on was/is cigarette butts. Now again I do not have a problem with this in principle, however how does someone dispose of the safely?

There are a couple of specific bins for them - well two that I know of, so what is a person supposed to do. I know throw them in a bin. Ah just thought of problem, it probably isn’t wise to throw a cigarette butt into a bin full of paper and greasy food wrapping - I’m sure the Fire Service would not be happy.

The council also said that they were going to distribute portable ashtrays for smokers. At this time I am not aware if any have been issued.

Overall the basis of the campaign is great, however the implementation leaves something to be desired.