It was inspired by the sight of a McDonald’s takeaway bag in my garden. I thought how ironic it is that these massive corporations, McDonald’s, Coke, KFC, spend so much on advertising and yet for much of the time, the place where we most often see their logo is in the gutter.
So my thought is this. To prevent litter – fine the company advertising on it.
It’d be simple to administrate. People who’s job it is to pick up litter – those poor, under-appreciated souls who do more to improve our quality of life than any other – simply put aside any litter with a company name, address or logo on it. Next, pass the details on to an office, whose job it is fine the company in question. And they use the fine to pay for the administration, and hopefully to increase the wages of the poor soul who picked up the litter in the first place
I cannot see how this plan would not work. It would create a massive incentive to those companies to prevent the spread of litter – the litter they created. Just in case they decide to stop putting their logo on things – make it compulsory. After all, this would hardly constitute a loss of freedom or increase their overheads, as it something they are willingly doing already for the benefit of advertising. It would cost them money to stop doing it.
Gordon Brown, David Cameron, the other guy, I don’t care who, just someone adopt this policy. It’s a vote-winner. It mightn’t prevent the blight of anonymous polythene bags, but it would make a huge difference.
