Campaign for Rural England's Stop The Drop

Hot on the heels of Radio Suffolk's Don't be a Tosser campaign, comes the CPRE's (Campaign for Rural England) Stop The Drop, which is targeting both litter louts and fly-tippers.

Reported on BBC's Breakfast news this morning, the CPRE is also urging government to introduce a 10p deposit charge on plastic bottles, in the hope that consumers will return bottles, which will leave the UK's litter-louts and non-recyclers penalised by the extra charge. According to the BBC report, the average household uses 500 plastic bottles a year but only 100 of these get reycled. It is thought that the extra charge would encourage people to see plastic bottles as as resource and return them.

There will be sceptics who will doubt the effectiveness of such a scheme if it were introduced, but the enterprising mother in me is already thinking about the extra pocket money my kids could earn or indeed the fundraising opportunities for our local school, if we hold an organised litter pick.

However what it could mean for households with excellent kerbside collection service that includes plastic bottles, is that active recyclers would also be penalised unless they returned the bottles back to the collection point, giving them yet another thing to think about. Is that fair? Would I get a £50 reduction in my council tax, for making the extra effort to take back my 500 bottles, which I already recycle? I don't think so. Oh dear, maybe I am one of those sceptics after all.

Oh such dilemmas. I'm just glad I am a mere blogger and not a law-maker.

However, as a consumer I welcome the suggestion and there is evidence that bottle deposit schemes work elsewhere. If you are interested, more information can be found at: www.thebottlebill.co.uk, www.litterheroes.co.uk and www.bottlebill.org.

Anyway, this headline should not detract from the rest of the CPRE's Stop The Drop campaign, which is spear-headed by Bill Bryson, and is encouraging individuals to take action. To see how you can get involved, pop over to the following webpage:

www.cpre.org.uk/campaigns/stop-the-drop/litter-and-fly-tipping/litter-take-action

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