‘Stop throwing litter on roads’, says campaigner (From Bournemouth Echo)

‘Stop throwing litter on roads’ urges campaigner

1:00pm Tuesday 5th February 2013 in News By Melanie Vass

FED up with seeing road verges strewn with litter, a Dorset cabinet maker is on a mission to get Britain to clean up its act.

Simon Owens, 50, has already posted video footage of rubbish discarded along the A338 Spur Road online to highlight the problem.

And he now intends to make a documentary about the subject, which he hopes will prompt people to change their ways.

Simon, who lives in Sturminster Newton, said it was a concern he’d had for 25 years. “I make furniture from driftwood and so spend a lot of time on beaches, looking for material,” he said. “I’ve often ended up clearing them of plastic because they are in such a state.

“And in the last couple of years, I realised I needed to do something about it now or I would regret it in 20 or 25 years time.

“The state of our roads is particularly atrocious and the vast majority of that rubbish can only be there because people have chucked it out of their cars.

“The message I’m trying to impart to those people who do hurl stuff out of their cars is ‘please stop doing it.’ The documentary is going to be called ‘Please,’ because it’s a plea not a demand.

“I’m not a documentary maker but I’m practical, I’ve got common sense and I can do it. I’ve started filming and got some interviews lined up and hopefully by the end of the year I will have some really good stuff I can put out on YouTube. I can also make DVDs and take it to festivals if it’s good enough.”