It is wonderful to see the work of Trish Savill and her Wombles groups being recognised (‘From white goods to ‘driver Tizer’: volunteers pick up slack in England’s fly-tipping crisis’, 28 February). Community-led litter picks are a great way for people and communities to come together and improve their local spaces.
As well as improving our physical landscape, litter picks can have many other benefits. They normalise environmental action as a universal human value and help to transform litter from an environmental issue to a human responsibility. They allow people to unite around shared values and achieve collective goals. They can be educational, planting the seeds of environmental consciousness in the young and old alike. They can help to influence policymakers to support better waste-management policies. They also help to instil a sense of hope that individual actions can lead to global impacts and real, measurable change.
Since 2018, 873,289 tonnes of rubbish have been picked up by 139 million people from 212 countries and territories on World Cleanup Day, which takes place each year on 20 September.
Gill Davidson
UK coordinator, World Cleanup Day and Digital Cleanup Day
Sheila McGregor (Letters, 1 March) asks what the Greens would do to address the litter and fly tipping beyond a “swipe at billionaires”. I lived in a village for 15 years which then gained its first Green councillor. It was refreshing. Instead of the usual performative politics, here was someone who personally went litter picking weekly, not just calling for it to be addressed. The same practical hands-on approach was applied across the board to traffic issues, crime and myriad other matters.
Politicians who live their values. Imagine that.
Ian Shaw
Heanor, Derbyshire