'I don't want this image in the town' BBC weatherman Philip Avery takes on litter bugs
BBC weatherman Philip Avery is waging a one-man war on litter louts in his hometown. Rainy days do not worry the 58-year-old who has collected well over 5,000 items on the streets of leafy Maidenhead in Berkshire since August.
Philip Avery is waging a one-man war on litter louts in Maidenhead
Now he is urging others to take up the cause to keep their communities tidy and says he is especially concerned about discarded alcohol bottles and drug paraphernalia.
He said: ”I didn’t want my kids walking to and from school thinking it is OK to be absolutely p**sed out of your head.
“That was one of my motivations.
“And I don’t want this image of litter in the town.”
Mr Avery is urging people to keep the community tidy
I didn’t want my kids walking to and from school thinking it is OK to be absolutely p**sed out of your head.
His wife signed up to the town’s ‘adopt a street scheme’ which provides residents interested in keeping their communities tidy with a litter picking kit that includes gloves and bags.
Annoyed with the rubbish left lying around near his Maidenhead house, Mr Avery said he “was just determined to do something about it.”
He added: ”It really just grew from there.
Mr Avery discovered that walking the length of a couple of roads will fill two rubbish bags
“It’s quite a nice family thing to do.
“We have a stroll around.
"From that you get a sense of the scale of the issue.”
His collections also take place during the school run and he finds just walking the length of a couple of roads will fill two rubbish bags.