Litter isn't someone else's problem, we all need to take responsibility for our own waste and it's disposal.
Each year in Falkirk Council we spend around £3 million on cleaning up litter. That's £3 million being spent on something that shouldn't even be there in the first place.
In Scotland that figure rises to around £75 million and with that money we could build a hospital and help save lives. To do this we are all going to have to do our own bit to help tackle this problem.
So what can we do?
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Put your litter in a bin. If there's no bin, take your litter home, or carry it until you find a bin.
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Don't throw litter from a vehicle. Use a car litter-bag or wait until you find a bin.
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Cigarette ends, matchsticks and chewing gum are litter too. So is discarded food. Put them in a bin.
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Be a responsible dog owner. Take a poop scoop or plastic bag when you take your dog for a walk. Always clean up your dog's mess and put it in a dog waste bin. If there is not a dog waste bin, use a litter bin.
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Make sure your household or business rubbish is securely contained in a bin or bag, so that it doesn't escape and become litter. Only put it out for collection close to the time it is uplifted.
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Never dump rubbish. Household and business waste that won't fit into a bin can be taken to one of the Council's Civic Amenity sites.
We can also try and minimise the amount of waste we produce. We can do this by following the Waste Hierarchy – better known as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Reduce
Reducing waste is easy to do – just don't buy things that have a lot of packaging on them in the first place. If you don't have it, you can dispose of it.
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Eat an apple instead of a packet of crisps – no crisp packet to throw away instead you can compost your apple core.
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Bring a home made sandwich in a reusable box instead of buying one in plastic packaging.
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If you don't need a bag or wrapper when buying something, tell the person at the checkout and they can save money and resources by reducing the amount of packaging they use.
If you can't reduce your waste then try to reuse it . . .