stop the drop - stop the litter

I was driving to the supermarket this morning - yes I know, I should use and support the local shops more - but at least I combine that car trip with a jaunt, with my rubbish, to the recycling bins, the charity shops, the council's own rubbish and recycling centre, then on to the garage to pick up petrol, call in on a friend on the way back, pop into the church to do my regular verger duties etc. So the trip is as "green" as I can possibly make it. And if you think I live profligately with all this rubbish, it is as far as possible recyclable or compostable - the only stuff in my dustbin these days is plastic (see recent post) and I am working very very hard to reduce that even more.
So back to my trip.
The road to the shops is quite fast and dangerous, with nasty blind bends that catch incautious drivers out. There along the side of that road were council workmen, picking up bag loads of rubbish that thoughtless motorists toss out of their windows. What a dangerous job, I thought - and at a cost that we, the rate payers, indirectly pay for. A bit of serendipity here - driving back home along the same route there was an item on the radio discussing just this point - how much litter picking costs us all, and how lives are endangered when it is cleaned up.
Which is why I support everything Bill Bryson is doing with his Stop the Drop campaign, to clean up our countryside. I know I have written of this before but it is so important I make no apology.
And I am sure England is not unique in this regard - how much of a problem is litter in the States, for example. Please let me know.

If only we could all nurture a reverence, a love and respect for the natural world around us, listen to what it is telling us and be open to its healing powers.
Then we would no longer want to destroy it. We would no longer want to defile it with our gas guzzling cars, our litter and filth, our plastics, our bottles and our cans. We could regain our spirituality and seek a simpler life. We could discover humility and vulnerability and a compassion for all living beings. We could even walk barefoot upon the earth, because as Alastair McIntosh writes in Soil and Soul, we ‘tread on the earth so much more gently barefoot.’