Rubbish in Tarvin!

A plea from a Tarvin Resident
" Hi Everyone,
I have been a resident in Tarvin since 1992. Its a beautiful village and when we moved here, it had a lot to offer and a thriving High street. Whilst this has sadly declined, some of the other reasons I wanted to live here haven't. The village is generally peaceful, the residents friendly and on the whole it was clean. We used to have a village cleaner who sadly, many years ago vanished. I don't know what happened to him but his efforts were greatly under appreciated and largely went unnoticed.
At the moment, we are all being requested not to travel, to stay home and whilst we do so, we are all allowed to take our daily exercise. This is something we take for granted in Tarvin. Many of my friends live in cities and some in London where, due to housing prices, they live in 'studio' apartments and have no outside space, not even a balcony.

In Tarvin we can enjoy a lot of green space, walks along one of the many country lanes, cycle routes and peaceful roads to walk along. I am a keen runner, leisure cyclist and generally a very active individual so getting out and going for my walks has been crucial in these difficult times.
Whilst I've been out on my walks, I have really started to notice how disgusting our village and surrounding areas have become, litter everywhere!
Why do we all think that it is acceptable? We shouldn't. That chap used to walk the streets every day, picking up after all of us so that we have a beautiful, clean and relaxing place to live.
I have always been against littering, especially from cars and vans and so, on a mission, I have begun to clean our streets, starting with Tarvin's side of the bypass. Two weeks ago, I managed to FILL 5 sacks of rubbish from only the Bridleway exit onto the bypass up to Tarvin roundabout. Vast numbers of alcohol bottles, drinks cans, sandwich packets. Frankly, it alarmed me how many drivers are clearly drinking and driving before throwing their rubbish out of the window.
I pulled rubbish from under hedges, in trees, I was covered in cuts and scratches but it was worth it to see the drastic improvement. The following week, I cycled down the abandoned bypass and to my horror, a huge amount of new litter was back which fuelled my anger and determination to carry on my mission and raise awareness to this issue.
Most years, we have a Big Village Clean but again, we shouldn't need to. Despite the fact that this has been cancelled due to the viral outbreak, I am on a mission and I am calling for your help, every one of you. We are all sharing Tarvin and now, more than ever, we are all walking the streets, cycling and taking more notice of the place we live and what we should be thankful of.
Consequently, you are all aware of the litter you are walking over, past and ignoring. Instead of doing that, why not work together? Having been doing this for two weeks, I have now come to a realisation that a lot of the rubbish (I would say about 50%) is coming from refuse collectors, dropping rubbish and not picking up or driving off with the gates open on the containers of their trucks.
I have been picking up thousands of cable ties, thanks to MJ Quinn working on BT's behalf to upgrade the village's fibre provision. However, the remainder of the rubbish is re-appearing despite my best endeavours which alarms me to realise people are littering wilfully.
I am writing this article, begging for you all to help me. In two weeks, I have filled 8 black sacks to the brim and I haven't been on every street yet! Some areas I have had to go back to more than once.
What I am asking is simple.
When you go for your walk around the village, have a think about taking a carrier bag with you and if you walk past some littler on your walk, please pick it up, put it in your carrier bag and place it in one of the public bins at the end of your exercise. Many of us are using home delivery services which insist on giving carrier bags, so, lets not throw them away, lets use them for a good cause.
If everyone who lives in Tarvin just picks up 5 pieces of litter, even just bottle caps, cable ties, beer bottle caps or crisp packets, we could eradicate litter from the village and make everyone's daily exercise and enjoyment of the village so much more pleasurable.
Lets take some pride in where we live, accept that it is not OK to 'live with it' and if we all put in that little bit of effort, we could change our outlook and culture in the village and make it better for everyone. I can't do this on my own and when we go back to work, I have two businesses to run so I can't keep it up forever and neither should I have to but if we all help, it'll become easy, quick and we can pride in our village again."

Ed: Perhaps our Councillors have a view on this and might discuss at Monday's Council Meeting?