As January’s litter picks continues, I was supposed to doing one on Thursday, which I still will of course. Today I was out for a long walk in County Durham and as I left a small village, I noticed an enormous amount of litter strewn by the side of the road. This continued for several hundred metres, with more cans and bottles than I have ever seen discarded by litterers.

I didn’t have any bin liners with me or a litter picker, but I did have a couple of supermarket bags for life and a pair of gloves. I decided to make a dent in the litter by filling my two bags, picking it up by hand with gloves on, which took no time at all given the high concentration of litter. I could have filled another twenty bags in the immediate area.

It’s ridiculous how dozens of people seem to have been throwing rubbish out of their car windows all along quite a long stretch of road, but at least there is a little less of it there now.