‘You find them hanging up in trees’ - frustrated Derbyshire litter picker collects over 40 dog waste bags in a day

Tracey Clifford, 41, from Chesterfield, found Nethermoor Road covered in the litter while walking her dog. She decided to clean the area herself and collected two rubbish bags and over 40 bags of dog waste.

She said: “It's so disheartening, taking your dog for a walk, and every street you walk down is just rubbish. Many people are not cleaning after their dogs. It’s dark, nobody can see them, so they just chuck the plastic bag and walk off.

“You find the bags hanging up in trees or chucked in bushes. It's really frustrating because the plastic bag will just sit there. Part of the issue is people who buy eco-friendly dog waste bags and think they can just leave them in the bushes. But the bag still will sit there for months and months and at the end it’s still plastic going into the ground. It doesn't break down like paper would do and just disappear.”

Tracey, who started Chesterfield Litter Picking Group two years ago and has been involved in litter picking every week, believes that rubbish and dog waste are big issues across the town.

She said: “There's so much rubbish around Chesterfield that council workers just haven't got enough time to go litter picking around all these different streets, which you can understand.

“They've got fines in place, but catching people leaving litter behind is very difficult. Raising awareness is very important because making people think twice about throwing the plastic on the ground could make a difference.”

Councillor Ross Shipman, who represents Tupton and Wingerworth at North East Derbyshire District Council, said: “Litter and dog mess is a huge problem throughout North East Derbyshire.

“The District Council, whose responsibility it is to keep our towns and villages tidy, have year on year failed to keep on top of this problem, and the job is now solely carried out through hard working volunteer groups and Parish Councils with limited budgets having to do what they can to keep our areas clean.

“That being said, we all have a responsibility to take our litter and dog mess home where bins aren’t available.”

Cllr Alex Dale, Leader of North East Derbyshire District Council added: "Our Streetscene and Environmental Health teams work tirelessly day in day out to help keep our district clean and tidy. They carry out regular patrols and last year they issued a record number of fixed penalties for environmental offences. It is extremely disappointing that an elected member of this authority should level such criticism at hardworking members of staff who are clearly doing the best they can in difficult circumstances.

“We’ve invested heavily in increasing the capacity of our Environmental Health team; increased the penalties for littering and flytipping to the maximum possible amount in law and overseen a string of high profile prosecutions, including the seizure and crushing of a vehicle proven to have been used to fly-tip waste.

"We’re also using mobile cctv cameras in flytipping hotspots to help catch the culprits and we’ve introduced a Public Space Protection Order across the District to help strengthen our officers’ arms when dealing dog fouling and other dog-related issues.”