Are we the real slumdogs?

How have we allowed an American influenced nightmare to take its hold on our towns and cities?

I am not talking about superstores, or even knifings, a particularly British version of shootings, but the ugly matter of the explosion in the growth of fast food takeaways. Fast food may have turned us into one of the fattest nations in Europe, but it has also turned us into one of the foulest.

Our Government established some time ago a principle of ‘polluter pays’ for clearing up polluted sites, but all of us pay for the litter of branded coke cups and saucy finger-licking plates that are discarded in all our high streets.

There is now talk of a levy on every supermarket plastic bag – but why not also a levy on every disposable cup, plate and item of cutlery? After all cafes and restaurants have to clear up their own mess and yet the plethora of fast food chains seem to think that it is their right to rely on our council tax payments to clear up theirs.

All households may be learning to separate and recycle, but so should ‘Mac-this’ and ‘Colonel-that’.

Maybe we have to resort to litter laws of Singaporian severity that give zero tolerance to businesses and individuals who treat our public realm in a way they would not tolerate at home

Law 1: Charge all takeaway merchants a surtax to compensate for the litter that they produce for others to discard.

Law 2: Charge £100 fine to anyone caught throwing litter, including chewing gum and fag-ends in a public place.

Law 3: Add 3 points to the licence of anyone in charge of a car from which litter is thrown.

Law 4: All culprits to do community service clearing chewing gum off pavements or separating rubbish of a particularly sticky and smelly nature, in Naomi Campbell style.

I know there are more important things in the world, and that by the standards of Mumbai’s slums we may look relatively tidy – but if we are to justify the status of a civilised nation we really should clear our bushes of loo paper and plastic bags, and our pavements of the remains of pizza suppers.

The police would no doubt say that they have far too much to do dealing with dangerous crime to become litter wardens – and that I understand – but it is the experience of others that if the punishment is painful enough (I am not proposing beatings or cutting off hands) and some examples are made early on, the problem fast disappears.

Maybe I am being uncharacteristically intolerant, however we really should ask whether we are more civilised than the Mumbai slum dwellers that do re-cycle virtually everything. Maybe it is we who are the real slumdogs?

by George Ferguson, Chairman of Acanthus Ferguson Mann Architects

Comments

Comment on this article

• Richard Jones, South East

  Agree with everyone posting. Need better education for youngsters, more direct action from adults - i.e. taking a lead etc. but my preferred option would be for criminals to be doing the picking up. Likelihood would be that they probably generated some of it! Best scene I remember was a Policeman going along a line of cars and issuing them with fixed penalty notices for littering whilst parked up in West Drayton. Classic!

• Ian Wickison, East of England

  Forget 'slumdogs' how about 'scumdogs' England must truely be the dirtiest country in Europe. Wherever you go there is litter and filth dumped in the streets and along our country roads and motorways. England has become like this because the population simply don't care. People turn a blind eye hardly noticing the rubbish because it has become 'the norm'. Dog dirt put in plastic bags then thrown up into trees. Roadside bins not emptied for weeks and rubbish overflowing and blowing along the road. Rubbish thrown out of moving cars like it's a game. Front gardens looking like recycling centres. City streets strewn with every take-away packaging possible. Builders waste tipped randomly in remote country lanes. Lakes, ponds and rivers full of cans, bottles trolleys and other assorted debris. Many farmyards looking like scrap metal merchants. ....to name but a few instances. There is no pride in England. There is no consideration for others. If a once proud nation can let the cities, towns and countryside degenerate into the state it is at present, what hope is there to educate to young. They see todays mess as the norm and will continue to keep it that way.

• Junie Nathan, London

  Mr Ferguson is not being "uncharacteristically intolerant" he is only pointing out what the majority of UK citizens already believe - we are fast being flushed down the toilet of takeaway filth. Put into force the laws which are already in place and let us be proud again of being British.