The European Litter Prevention Association

Celebrating our angels and educating our demons

15 October 2015

Littering demons

Every day, hundreds of thousands of little litter demons are busy littering as they drop their cigarette butts, chewing gums, packaging residues, paper slips and many other items they no longer see an immediate use for… straight onto the ground, wherever they happen to be. Rather than make the marginal effort of disposing of their belongings responsibly, they selfishly choose to burden society at large with whatever item they have that has outlasted its perceived usefulness.

Angels of clean and beautiful

For every hundred litter demons out there, there are a few angels of cleanliness trying to prevent the litter demons from wreaking havoc wherever they go. Some are constantly reminding us to do the right thing and others try to make our lives easier by providing simple disposal solutions. Others still are cleaning up after the litter demons, as they attempt to recover our pristine countrysides and make our city streets more welcoming.

KSB honours Scotland’s angels with “Hero of the month” award

In 2012 Keep Scotland Beautiful committed to making Scotland the cleanest country in Europe. To do so, it decided to enlist the help of all the angels it could find, notably by recognising their valiant efforts in the fight against litter. Since January 2013, 35 individuals have been honoured with the “Hero of the month” award for their outstanding contribution to cleaning up Scotland.

The latest award winning angel, Ian Cassidy from Stevenston, North Ayrshire, was “instrumental in establishing the successful litter picking group ‘Friends of Stevenston Beach’ [and] helped the group to collect a record-breaking 1000 sacks of rubbish in only six months. In his voluntary capacity, Ian has also been engaging school pupils in their local environment and has encouraged many new volunteers to sign up”.

A higher purpose: a litter-free world

All angels agree: preventing evil is better than cleaning up after the fact. Nonetheless, when angels are at work, even when they are cleaning up after the thousands of little litter demons among us, they serve the higher purpose of establishing the moral high ground: we should all be striving for a litter-free world.