This is “offensive”.

In our letters page today a Ewell resident rightly fulminates against the selfish habit of leaving dog poo bags for others to remove.

---

“To the person who tied a Dog Poo Bag to the fence between the NESCOT Playing Fields and the College buildings yesterday (Thursday).

You said you would return to collect it later as you didn’t want to carry it with you. You will have noticed it was not there on your return as I added it to my Litter picking bag.

_{Image – c. Bill Kasman – under licence illustrates the wider problem.}

Had I come along 5 minutes later, when I wouldn’t have heard your explanation, how would I have known you would collect it? How would I have known that the other (very similar) bag dropped 2 metres further on was not yours? Or the black bag on a branch in the hedge round the corner? Or another deposited in a popular dropping spot on the edge of the Rugby Grounds?

Would I have been sure that the 4 people who threw glass beer bottles into the hedge, or the cans along the roadside, or the fast food packaging etc would be collected later to be deposited in the bins on the route, or taken home to be put in their own bins? No.

Your bag probably weighed no more than 100 grams. The bag of rubbish I collected weighed about 8 kilos when I’d finished. Approximately 2,000 items (I didn’t count beyond 250); Fine potential of £200,000.

You’re probably saying “mine’s different”. NO. It’s Litter. It’s Offensive; It’s an Offence.

Jennifer Brzozowska