Sir, - A couple of years ago I was out early one Sunday morning, taking photos for an anti-litter campaign. The only people about were a couple of German tourists off the boats. They readily co-operated - pointing at discarded drink cans and crisp packets, holding their noses, and so on. Then one of them said to me: "Really - how do you think we can go home and buy your Irish food when we come here and see you live like pigs?"
It is a question everyone should ponder. It should be asked in yard-high letters in every town in the country. Our food industry is still a major source of wealth. Everyone who reads this is, directly or indirectly, made richer or poorer by its success or failure. Everyone who litters, from the farmer who lets plastic blow about the fields to the kids who throw toffee papers from cars, is helping to make us poorer.
The appeal to aesthetics (Beauty dies where litter lies) has, we must admit, failed. Those who care about beauty are already converted. What about Employment dies where litter lies, then? - Yours, etc., Malcolm MacDonald,
Honorary Secretary, Banagher Tidy Towns, Co Offaly.