Stop The Drop Campaign
CPRE’s Stop the Drop campaign tackles the litter and fly-tipping problem that is despoiling our beautiful countryside. It’s headed by CPRE president and author Bill Bryson, a passionate anti-litter campaigner and champion of the countryside.
At a local level, supporters of the campaign can get involved by organising their own litter pick or joining a local litter volunteer group through litteraction.org.uk. Supporters can pledge to Stop the Drop, joining CPRE in lobbying local authorities, government and other bodies legally responsible for keeping land litter-free. Through these various campaigning actions CPRE aim to demonstrate to Government and other authorities the strength of support behind Stop the Drop.
Read more about the campaign here, including notes from CPRE President Bill Bryson
Discovery Zone
History of litter
Litter can be as small as a sweet wrapper, as large as a bag of rubbish or it can mean lots of items scattered about. Environmental charity ENCAMS, home to Keep Britian Tidy, describes litter as: "Waste in the wrong place caused by human agency."
In other words, people make litter and every piece of litter damages our environment.
But litter isn’t new.
It has a long and sometimes unexpected past too!
- Ostracism was a practice in ancient Athens where, once a year, citizens could vote into exile one politician they didn’t like. To cast their votes, they would inscribe the name of their chosen target on any old piece of broken pottery that they found lying around.
- In “The Feeding of the 5,000” we are told (in St Matthew’s Gospel, Ch14, v 20) that “they took up of the fragments that remained 12 baskets full”.
- Monte Testaccio or Monte dei cocci is an artificial hill composed of pottery fragments coming entirely from the amphorae and diotae jars used to transport grains and liquids, and especially olive oil, into ancient Rome via the Tiber. The dump was used until the end of the 4th century. It is now overgrown with grass and trees, but archaeologists have calculated the depth of the fragments as 45m and the circumference as 1017m. (See Wikipedia for more information)
- The word “litter” stems originally from the Latin word “lectus” which means bed (the French word for bed is “lit”). It also referred to the bedding that was used for animals and, over time, became used to refer to “odds and ends, miscellaneous rubbish”. It’s defined by 1730 edition of The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as “a state of untidiness; a disorderly accumulation of things lying about.”
- Since the end of the 19th century vast dumps of papyri (documents written on paper made from the papyrus reed) have been discovered in Egypt, especially at Oxyrhynchus (“City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish”). These finds have included some important literary manuscripts.
The need to involve young people
So, we ask you all to help to educate young people and involve them in what you do.
There are two main ways that you can help achieve this:
- Involve young people in your organised litter picks.
- Work with your local school(s) to educate young people about litter.
Suggestions for making litter picking fun
Here are some ideas for making litter picks fun and how to involve more young people in them:
- Make the pick a competition (with prizes, of course!). Ideas include:
- How many sacks can you fill?
- How many bottles/cans/crisp packets etc can you collect?
- What’s the weirdest thing you can find?
- What can you find that will take longest to biodegrade?
- Make a sculpture/collage out of what you collect to illustrate the problem of litter
- Encourage whole families to come out and join you.
- Promote a grandparents’ and grandchildren event (to give Mum and Dad some time off).
- Look out for young people passing by. They are often curious about what you’re doing and will sometimes join in if you ask them.
- Have a creative litter pick - make art out of the litter you find.