It is too easy to blame Bradford Council - as many people do - for the litter-strewn state of the district and demand that more be done to clean up the mess. But to be fair to the Cleansing Department, it does its job rather well, particularly in the centre of Bradford and the satellite towns.

Visit the main shopping areas of, say, Shipley or Keighley or walk up Darley Street early on any day and there will be barely a scrap of litter in sight. By mid-afternoon, though, the ground will be strewn with paper and polythene bags, drinks cans, fast-food containers and all the other debris of our chuckaway society.

If Bradford district is an untidy mess for much of the time, it is because too many of the people who live here make it that way. By refusing to pop their rubbish in one of the thousands of bins provided, they let Bradford down to the outside world and undermine the morale of those who live here alongside them.

Over the years, a lot of effort has been put into various campaigns to get that message across. None has had much impact on those members of the population who appear to be oblivious to appeals to their common sense and better nature. The big challenge is to invest them with a little civic pride.

Now the Council is to try again, with its BinIt! Campaign launched today. We support the appeal wholeheartedly and hope that this time the message will start to get through and the tide of litter will be turned back at last.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.