LIVING on a quiet country lane, about a mile long, I feel the need to pick up discarded rubbish, mostly plastic, before it enters the nearby river and ultimately the ocean.

Many others, equally incensed, must do too because they often get there before I do. Waste is at least a standard black bin per year!

Meanwhile, I see an epidemic of 'virtue signalling', demonising all plastic, right down to items that are an insignificant part of the pollution problem.

But, sadly, I see little attention paid to tackling the real problem - people.

At least 10 per cent of the UK population still regards it as socially acceptable to fling their coffee cups, sandwich wrappers and drink bottles out of the window of their car. And, worse, I fear that more than 90 per cent of the population of the wider world also regards this as routinely OK.

Worst of all, that it is unnecessary for them or anyone else to do anything about it.

Until social attitudes to all waste disposal are changed, banning straws is just blowing in the wind.

To change attitudes, I wish I could redirect mobile surveillance cameras to catch litter louts. And I'd like to enhance punishments; while I regard Bill Bryson's 'shoot to kill' policy way harsh, I'd like to include a public flogging option, or a few weeks on a waste sorting line!

Paul A. Bristow

Kendal