Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Litter

It’s lovely isn’t it? Lying in the park, basking in the first sunshine of summer with the chimes of the ice cream van and the singing of birds. Is that the smell of newly-cut grass you detect? No, it’s actually the smell of a discarded sandwich wrapper.

It seems that heat-worshipping Londoners are great at impromptu park picnics but rubbish at disposing of the litter afterwards. London councils and park cleaners are laying on extra services to keep up with cleaning up of public spaces. One resident described Highbury Fields as a ‘war zone’ by Tuesday evening which we think might be a slight exaggeration as we can’t remember the last time we saw tanks and falling masonry in North London but the mess has obviously had an impact.

Cleaning up London is apparently one of the mayor’s top priorities, leading to initiatives like the Great Towpath Tidy and cleaning up London’s secret rivers, so we hope that campaigns such as the Capital Cleanup will encourage park-picnickers to find a bin or take their litter home to keep our green spaces pleasant for everyone.