This news item from the Evening Telegraph is something I’d like to see in the U.S.:
Takeaways told to clean up their act
By Jennifer Coles
BUSINESSES selling takeaway food and drink are being urged to clean up their act and encourage customers to keep the streets clean. Wellingborough Council will be sending letters to takeaway restaurants in the new year, asking them to take steps to help reduce litter.
Environmental warden Mark Reneerkens said: “A significant proportion of litter in our town centre is caused by the customers of businesses that sell food and drink for immediate consumption outdoors.
“We are trying to encourage businesses to work with us to reduce litter by asking them to look at public education, packaging and litter clearance.”
The restaurants are being asked to display anti-littering posters on their premises, to consider using less packaging, for example asking customers whether or not they need a bag, and to clear litter 100 metres around their premises.
Mr Reneerkens said: “Customers buying food for immediate consumption do not always need a covering, and sometimes they can make do with a base container.
“We are asking takeaways to bear in mind that customers often eat while they walk and will drop litter up to 100 metres from the shop, so the shops need to widen their net when they pick up litter.”
Huseyin Ozen, who runs Wellingborough Kebab Shop in High Street, said: “I think the letter is a good thing. On weekends when people are drunk they tend to drop things all over the High Street, and we can all do our bit to make it tidier. If we tell them not to they won’t always listen but it is certainly worth a try.
“My staff go out now and then and pick up anything they see.”
Duty manager at McDonald’s Nicola Hollis said: “We have our own litter policy and we send staff out to pick up litter within a 200-metre radius, so the council’s letter will have little effect on us.
“I think it is a good thing that they are sending out the message to other fast-food outlets, because when I come to work on a Saturday morning there is quite often litter strewn up and down the High Street.”
The full article contains 362 words and appears in Northants Evening Telegraph newspaper.
Last Updated: 18 December 2007 10:51 AM
I would not miss the following when I’m out walking.
Fast food companies need to educate their consumers to stop littering.
When I first began photographing the trash I find for my PlanetTrash blog, I always took pictures of McDonald’s litter because there was so much of it around.
The Earth Is Not a Trash Can 