From W Le Sueur.
IN the JEP of 31 December your editorial column stated: ‘. . . but it is also worth remembering that we live in an extraordinarily beautiful place’. I would like to suggest that three important words have been omitted from this statement. After ‘beautiful place’ should be added ‘covered in litter’.

Since retiring last April, my wife and I have taken to doing a fair amount of walking, and everywhere we go we have noticed the amount of discarded litter.

Putting aside the town area of St Helier – this has enormous and difficult problems of its own – the countryside areas seem to be covered in litter. Wherever we walk we find plastic bottles galore, cans, glass bottles, cigarette packets, plastic and polystyrene containers and wrapping of every description.

This is on roadsides, hedgerows, public areas, car parks and even bus stops. In fact, I defy anybody not to find a plastic bottle in any road or lane in the Island. I now take a plastic bag with me on every walk and I’m guaranteed to have filled it by the end of my walk.

As an example, we recently walked up Route de l’Aleval from the Victoria pub to the Living Legend, and litter of every description was on the roadside, hedgerows and even the brook – too much for my plastic bag.

I have noticed that litter seems to increase substantially during the school holidays, thus possibly pinpointing one of the causes. In my naivety I assumed that young people today understood more about our environment and the benefits of recycling, but I suppose it’s not ‘cool’ to be seen putting your Lucozade bottle or Coke can in a bin, especially in front of your mates.

It appears to me, and no doubt I could be wrong, that Transport and Technical Services have virtually done away with the roadsweeping gangs we so often saw doing a marvellous job on our main roads, to be replaced by a mechanical sweeper which we see once in a blue moon (certainly along Route Orange). They cannot pick out the litter in hedgerows or on pavements.

Also, what has happened to our wonderful reliable parish roadsweepers? It seems that they have become extinct – no doubt killed off in a cost-cutting exercise. How we used to do things the good old Jersey way.
For 2009, could I please urge everyone who loves and cares about this Island to help fight against the creeping problem of litter and make this Island a truly ‘beautiful place’? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we, as a civilised and intelligent society, didn’t drop litter in the first place?
3 Links Halt,
Route Orange,
St Brelade.