We always welcome a Letter to the Editor to share with our readers – unsurprisingly they don’t always reflect the views of this publication. If you have something you’d like to share, get in touch and of course, your considered comments are welcome below. This from Philippe Wines in Newport. Ed
I am convinced that this Island has a very good chance of achieving first place in this, albeit imaginary, world-wide competition.
Circumstantial evidence provided by months of collection and analysis of street litter indicates that our thanks and congratulations must be directed to the absolutely massive input, sorry, output provided by some of our Island children and their discarded kiddies’ sweet and crisp wrappings and uneaten sandwiches; fast-food addicts; fast-food outlets; wads of fast-food paper napkins (aka ‘serviettes’); alcoholics clutching beer, cider, wine and/or vodka bottles; those who leave the ‘incorrect’ refuse out for collection (thus leaving it on the pavement for a fortnight); Island Roads seemingly laid-back street cleaning regime, and, finally, those people who cannot walk along a road without guzzling from fizzy drinks cans and then throwing them in hedges, gardens or on the footways.
Reluctance to bin it
I am sure the Island’s rat population are eternally grateful for this endless supply of manna from heaven.
I have witnessed, many times, the same group of local schoolchildren walking along our road eating crisps. They carefully fold the empty pockets and ‘post’ them in a neighbour’s hedge. One daren’t speak to them, or, worse still, take a photo, God forbid!
Friends from Singapore who visited the Island this year recoiled when they saw the filth everywhere. Being medics they wondered at the resultant strength that our immune systems must have built-up over the years.
My morning haul
Sunday morning’s dog-walk of 1.5 miles to Carisbrooke Castle and back, armed with poo-bags and a black refuse sack, resulted in a collection of 19 empty drinks cans, seven fast-food wrappings (two of which contained uneaten food), two vodka bottles, one cheap bottle of wine (half left over), about two dozen wads of ‘serviettes’ and two discarded and used dog-poo bags.
The above is a pretty average collection on an otherwise lovely, sunlit Sunday morning. To make my day really memorable I found this scene, photograph above, when I arrived at Carisbrooke Castle.
If you provide bins for dog-poo they need to be emptied on a regular basis. Or is this type of joined-up thinking to advanced?
