{"id":348,"date":"2013-03-21T19:33:12","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=348"},"modified":"2013-03-21T19:33:12","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:33:12","slug":"scotland-has-a-litter-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=348","title":{"rendered":"Scotland has a litter problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There is lots of rubbish thrown about in the Hatton car park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps not Hatton at its most beautiful!\u00a0\u00a0 Three things came together today. First I visited\u00a0 the car park beside the Hatton Hall, looking for the ideal spot to take a picture of the earthworks in progress for the temporary road bridge which will reunite Hatton.\u00a0 In the end the best picture was take paparazzi style, holding my camera at full stretch above my head to reach over the fence.\u00a0 The work does seem to be progressing well.<\/p>\n

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The earthworks have reached the burn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But back to the car park. While I was there I spotted how much litter was lying around.\u00a0 Worse than usual, I feel.\u00a0 That on the day when Richard Lochhead MSP, the Scottish Environment Secretary indicated that the Scottish Government is considering raising the \u00a350 fix penalty notices for dropping litter. This is one of the ideas under consideration for Scotland’s first national litter strategy with proposals due for consultation in the summer.\u00a0 He drew attention to how much local authorities transport providers and other businesses have to pay to clean up all the rubbish that is left lying around.\u00a0\u00a0 The Hatton car park should not be a place for litter.\u00a0\u00a0 There are bins right there.\u00a0 But it needs a change in mindset:\u00a0 put your litter in a bin, or take it home.<\/p>\n

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Just one corner of Hatton with its litter problem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The third thing that happened today was that someone posted on the HARA Facebook Page asking about the annual clean up.\u00a0 She wrote: “Is there a date yet for the Hatton Litterpick? Looking forward to it, as we thoroughly enjoyed it last time.”\u00a0\u00a0 The HARA page on Facebook\u00a0<\/a> I read in the Spring Hara Newsletter that the date will be 13th April – and not before time.\u00a0 Well done HARA for organising this annual clean up.<\/p>\n

But it is not just Hatton.\u00a0 When I was out and about photographing the bridges over the Water of Cruden I climbed down the bank from the lay-by on the Mintlaw Road to take a picture of the bridge. I was really quite shocked at the amount of rubbish scattered all along the bank – and you can see there is a green bin there, ready and waiting.<\/p>\n

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Rubbish on the lay-by bank not in the bin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Scottish Government will do its part;\u00a0 community groups like HARA will do their part;\u00a0 but the answer must surely be in personal responsibility.\u00a0 I will not walk past the discarded drinks can again.\u00a0\u00a0 I will pick it up.\u00a0 I hope others will do the same.<\/p>\n

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Perhaps not Hatton at its most beautiful!\u00a0\u00a0 Three things came together today. First I visited\u00a0 the car park beside the Hatton Hall, looking for the ideal spot to take a picture of the earthworks in progress for the temporary road bridge which will reunite Hatton.\u00a0 In the end the best picture was take paparazzi style,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crudencountry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}