Places Features

It’s against the law. It’s anti-social. Yet, according to one recent poll 1/3 of us admit to throwing rubbish out of our car windows. Clean-up patrols working for the Highways Agency collected 427 sackfuls of litter for every mile of motorway in 2007.

The picture on Britain’s other roads is no different – just take a look out of your window on your next journey. 

Alan Adcock meets Nicholas Crane

Nicholas Crane – writer and Vice President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England took a trip across the East to see some of the most shameful litter hotspots, and to meet some of the people trying to make a difference.  

Kevin Hessey is a trucker who regularly travels along the A14. He is determined to do something about it, and has launched his own campaign to raise awareness of the issue. He says he can pretty much pick out what lorry drivers do.

Campaigning trucker, Kevin Hessey

"They usually bag it before they throw it and they have a nasty habit of urinating in bottles and throwing those out, which is my real bug-bear - I hate that. I can’t understand why you would want to do that. I appreciate that there aren’t the facilities that we used to have, but you wouldn’t want anyone coming round your house, throwing something in your garden or urinating in a bottle. It’s not good for the countryside and not good for the wildlife.

"I do get emotional; I do despair at people sometimes. They are just destroying everything and it does get to me. It’s chronic. I love all the places in this country and there are some beautiful places."

But the truth is we can’t just blame lorry drivers for the state of the rubbish on our roads. It's down to all of us.

Alan picks up other people's litter

Alan Adcock from Essex isn’t prepared to just sit and do nothing. He is one of a growing number of people who go it alone and pick up other people’s rubbish.

In the meantime, while we (Inside Out) were filming at one service station, the manager told our crew that he picks up the rubbish himself every week - but two days later - it is covered again. And that’s despite the fact that there are litter bins everywhere. 

The solution could be so simple if we’d all just take our rubbish home or stick it in a bin!