Column: Let's throw our dirty littering habits in the bin

Littering is a big problem in this country, according to Keep Scotland Beautiful statistics

It doesn’t take long for you to walk down a street in Scotland without an emtpy crisps packet or a discarded plastic bottle entering into your sight.

Our natural landscape is undoubtedly the envy of countries all over the world, however, one quick look to the ground on one of our high streets would paint a far less pretty picture for a tourist.

By no means is Scotland the only country which has to deal with this problem.

Yet the figures tell a rather sorry tale.

Zero Waste Scotland has handily localised the breakdown of annual littering statistics for Falkirk district residents.

A Keep Scotland Beautiful report from 2016 found the country collects 50 Kelpies’ worth of litter ever year — the equivalent to 15,000 tonnes or 250 million items.

That works out at around nearly 50 pieces of rubbish per person or 475 items being dropped on the ground every minute.

Some of the most commonly littered products are: gum and gum wrappers; cigarette butts and packaging; food and food packaging; and drinks containers.

We’ve practically become used to accepting our pavements being plastered in chewing gum or packaging being left lying across our parks.

But what particularly irritates me is how little time or effort is involved in disposing of said items.

If there was a quick fix to resolve this issue completely, I wouldn’t be writing this.

However, a small thing like cleaning up after a litterbug would be a start.

Failing that, share the aforementioned Kelpies analogy with the culprit.